


At Our Next Meeting (A Song of Revenge)

by QuiveringSunset



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe- Fantasy, Combat for sport, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, F/M, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pirates, Prostitution, Slow Build, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:29:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3259934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuiveringSunset/pseuds/QuiveringSunset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventeen-year-old Charles has a peaceful life in the quiet sea town of Westshire, mourning the loss of beloved sister many years before and having sworn vengeance on the man who took her from him: the one they called Max. One day Max, now Captain Erik Lehnsherr, comes to Westshire aboard the Magistrate's personal warship, bringing with him a fleet of "gifted" - men and women who possess abilities similar to Charles' own. Captain Lehnsherr aims to recruit men for his mission: securing the Kingdom's peace with the native tribes of Genosha, and present Charles with the perfect opportunity to enact his revenge. </p><p>Of course, as is the way of the sea, things are not always as smooth as they appear. </p><p>Also featuring Alex/Hank and Marie/Logan</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_A Bird, a Deer, a Dog, and a Lion walk into a bar...._

 

~*~

 

"She was beautiful once," said the old woman. She set a bowl of broth and vegetables before the child who sat at her small wooden table, and looked at her with wide eyes, big and blue and completely uncomprehending. "Your sister."

The girl, she meant, who lay not three feet from them, her ragged breathing and sharp coughs echoing throughout the small kitchen. The woman took a small cloth in hand and dabbed it gently across the girl's forehead, the skin there peeling and scaling and a miserable hue of sickly blue. Her normally vibrant eyes shone a dull amber, and her skin, usually so fine and leathery to the touch now felt slimy. An exquisite creature, just turned nineteen, who not a month before could be seen prancing through the fields just beyond the window, like the rarest of birds. And now...The woman doubted she would make it through the night.

The boy choked, and spluttered. The woman looked to him sharply, but decided not to berate him for eating too fast, as her eyes lingered on the way his too-big clothes clung to his thin frame.

"It was unwise of you to come here," she had told the girl when they'd first arrived, what felt like so long ago and yet was only weeks. She said it again many times to the girl as she grew further ill, first too weak to stand, then eventually, to move. And every time her eyes answered back, rage and helplessness and a plea,

Where else are we to go?

Where else, indeed. "A girl such as you, falling prey to a man such as he." If it weren't so common a thing in the Kingdom of Arran and occasionally in Westshire, their little hamlet by the sea, it would be almost laughable.

But there was no laughing to be had, that day in the woman's small home, at the expense of the poor girl who had fallen in with the man from the sea. The drifter, the rake. The devil.

And she didn't even know his name. Not his real one, anyway. She knew the one he'd given when he'd spied her from the shore, when he named himself Max and called her a nymph and regaled her with tales of his voyages; an ocean so grand you could look for miles in all directions and see nothing but sky, and cities so rich that every surface shone gold. Places where people with gifts such as theirs were not only accepted, but celebrated. Where she wouldn't have to hide anymore.

"I wanted to believe him, Irene," the girl said. "So badly, I wanted to believe him. For me, for you, and for Charles. However he ends up, I wanted to believe it for him."   

The woman, Irene, found that she could not begrudge her even that small a hope. So she opened her home to them in their hour of need, knowing that as she did, she set into motion a series of events that would end in a way these things usually did: with adventure, loss, and most unexpectedly, something that shone a little more brightly and all the more bitter. Love.

The girl coughed once more, and Irene felt it now, the inevitability batting against her like an insect. She motioned for the boy to come closer. He did so, and grabbed the girl's hand.

"Raven?" He whispered.

The girl blinked, eyes shifting from yellow to brown to blue, before resuming their crystalline cast.

"Charles," she said. "I need to tell you..."

Raven broke off, eyes flying to Irene where she sat as far from them as she could, unwilling to invade their moment. Irene, whose gift was the ability to see many things but was often unable to see what was right in front of her, was therefore at a loss. Raven seemed to sense this and turned back to the boy. She gripped his hand, running a blue finger over the delicate skin of his wrist. He jerked, as did she, eyes widening. Something happened between them then, a thing which would confuse, then haunt, Irene for the rest of her innumerable days.

After a moment Raven smiled, and began to laugh, a horrible crackling sound. As it died down, she beckoned him closer. The boy bent his head to her lips.  

"Find him..." she said, wheezing. "Find him, Charles. And make him pay."

 

~*~

 

_Fifteen years later._

 

The boy, who was no longer a boy but yet not quite a man, had turned into something of a rambleaway himself. It wasn't just hearing the thoughts of the people he encountered, the knowing what they liked or what they expected. It was how he knew what lay beneath their desires of the moment, and how to twist those into something that would appear as natural as breathing. And it was natural. It _was_. Knowing every sinful thought, ever errant desire as he did, he could have taken what was offered to him a hundred times over, and yet he _didn't._ Because he was...responsible, or something.  

And Irene might very well kill him if he did.  

But it was a hard thing, not to act. He was young and quite beautiful, all dark hair and blue eyes and red lips. If not for the gangly, boyish way he held himself, or the gentle, not-quite- deep timbre of his voice, one might have thought him a girl himself. The boys in the village taunted him for it, but the girls...The girls loved it.

"You're so cute," said the little thing he had beneath him now, spine arched and breasts pressed against his chest. "Adorable. Like a baby bird." She was rather adorable herself, Miss Anna Marie, with dark eyes and full lips and a personality like a lit match.

"A bird?" Charles teased, as his fingers found their way along the hem of her skirt. She was hitched up on a pile of crates and sacked potatoes in the basement of the pub where Charles worked, the Red Hen, squirming delightfully as his hands wandered over her garters.

"And what kind of bird would I be, love?" he whispered in her ear. "A finch perhaps, sent to bring tidings of joy and happiness? Or am I a pheasant, plain and unattractive yet surprisingly adept at getting what I want?"

"You're a magpie," she giggled, then inhaled sharply when Charles pressed a hot, open kiss to her neck. "You won't stop talking."

Charles laughed. He couldn't help it. "Well I am attracted to shiny things," and resumed his exploration of her skin as it was revealed piece by piece, his pace careful and quiet but unhurried.

And then, he felt the presence of another mind on the periphery. He groaned.

"We're not alone," he told her. The creaking of the steps down into the basement storage could be heard then, and the wafting scent of beer and bread from above, along with the chatter of the bar's patrons.

"Charles?" The boots on the stairs stopped, just visible.

"Yes, sir?" It was Master Laughlan, the owner of the Red Hen. Looking to Anna Marie, Charles held his finger to his lips. She rolled her eyes, and thought, _Obviously_.  

"What have you gotten yerself into down there boy?" said Master Laughlan. "Get lost, did ya?"

"No sir. Well, I uh, can't seem to find the eggs sir."

"Can't find the eggs, he says. They're just behind the -"

"Just behind the casks of new year vintage, yes sir. I believe I've just found them." He looked at Anna Marie, who was holding a jar of eggs suspended in cloudy green tinted liquid. She smirked at him and moved them out of his reach when he tried to grab them.

"Well hurry up then, boy. I've got tables that need seein' to."

"Yes Master Laughlan. Be right up."

Charles turned back to Anna Marie. She was looking smug, her mind radiating a mockery and playfulness that he found endearing and addictive. Putting on his best doe-eyed look, the one that made many an older matron blush and had thawed many the heart of a frosty schoolmarm, he licked his lips.

"Now who's the magpie?" he teased. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her lips, which she immediately deepened.

When they broke apart, Anna Marie said, "Or am I the pheasant, seeing as how I got what I wanted." She winked, and hopped off her perch. Within moments she was presentable once again. Charles retrieved her apron from the floor, brushing off the dust with a nearby rag.

Quietly they climbed the staircase. At the top, Charles, making sure the coast was clear, held open the door for her to pass through first. Before she did, though, Anna Marie looked back at him, expression clouding.

"What is it?" he asked, concerned.

"Do you think..." she began, biting her lip. _Does he know?_

 _Your father?_ "No, don't be silly. He doesn't suspect a thing." And, he added privately to himself, I highly doubt he would allow me to continue working here if he did. "He still thinks you're an angel. You don't need to worry." He made a gesture towards his temple.

In truth, he hadn't exactly _checked_ that way though, because he never really considered it to be an issue. She was careful; they were discreet, and nobody, except Irene, it seemed, suspected Charles of doing anything untoward. Ever. But, Anna Marie needed the reassurance.

Predictably, she brightened. She set to exit back to the pub. With a coy smile, she added, "I'm still an angel, Charles."

He smirked at her, and replayed in her mind a series of images of what they'd been only minutes away from doing right there, in the basement of her father's bar on a sack of unwashed tubulars. "Of course you are, darling."

 

~*~

 

"I hope you're being careful with that girl," were the first words out of Irene's mouth when Charles walked through the door and arrived home from the Red Hen later that evening. She sat in her usual seat by the hearth, worn wooden chair supporting her willowy frame. It was just gone Spring in Westshire, their little town by the sea, and the air was slowly filling with cool, fresh air that tickled the senses. Irene was wrapped in her customary blue shawl, her milk white eyes staring straight ahead, seemingly at nothing.

Charles rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm being careful." There was no use in denying her assumption of what, exactly, he'd been up to. Just as his gift aided him in his manners of charm and seduction, so too did Irene's gift aid her in the detection of many lies. He had, unfortunately, learned that early on.

Charles decided it was best to head this particular train of conversation off at the pass. "Anna Marie is delightful. She is smart and funny and, yes, attractive. She has expressed no interest in any other suitors, nor is her father in any position to secure her one. As far as anyone is concerned we are simply doing what two people of our stations, our age, and our proximity are expected to do." _And it's none of your business._

"And does she know of your other playthings?" Irene asked mildly. "The one from the warf, for instance, with the fire-tipped fingers? Or perhaps the boy from your classes, with the strange shoes?"

 _"Hank?"_ Good Lord. "No - Irene - it's not like that." Why was she making this a much bigger deal than it really was? "We're just...we're having a good time. I like them. I like her."

Irene had a habit of not blinking for long periods of time. It was rather creepy. "Do you care for her?"

 _Care?_ Charles spluttered, "Of - of course, I care!" He felt himself turning red, his hands clenching and his chest filling with the stirrings of anger, because he knew what she was driving at. "I'm not _like him_ , Irene!"

Irene was quiet for a long moment, and she said, "I didn't say you were."

"Well you implied it."

"The circumstances, as you've so clearly laid out, imply plenty on their own." Her voice softened, from the harsh, chiding tones she would use with him as a child to something more patient as she tried to explain, as she tried to do, why she was harping on one thing or another. "The Sight is like experiencing only daydreams, or half-remembered nightmares, and a constant feeling of déjà vu. There are things I See that haven't happened and never will; things that would occur if only a certain action were to be taken, a certain line crossed." She paused, because Charles was fidgeting, already knowing all of this. "About this girl, I have a feeling of... great dread. She is young, terribly young, and still so naive. I know you can't see it; knowing others minds can't give you that. But she has yet to experience her Event, and I worry that -"

Charles rolled his eyes. "She is not _gifted_ , Irene," he said. "If she were, she'd have already manifested by now." Most gifted people experienced their Event, a period of great stress or change which triggered their gift, as children. People of the old beliefs, like Irene, found great spiritual significance in these Events, believing they foretold the future of the individual who experienced them. An Event born of tragedy would yield a gift that would only bring sorrow, for example. People of the modern persuasion, like Charles, believed they had more to do with things like environment and hormones and family history. Anna Marie was sixteen, much older than any of the gifted that Charles had ever met, and none of her family were gifted. His _Event_ occurred almost fifteen years prior, with the death of his sister.

"Manifest," said Irene with distaste. "What is this word, _manifest._ "

"A science word," said Charles. He opened his mouth, beginning to tell her of all the great things that had already been discovered, the new lessons he'd learned in school that had the potential to help improve everything in Westshire, from industry to farming. But that too had already been discussed. At length.

Irene made a noncommittal noise. "You say tomato, I say tomato. The point is, you think I'm being cruel and making fun of you, which," she grinned, "I will admit that I am, a little bit. But I would also hope that by now you've learned to trust that when I urge you towards caution my reasons are usually sound." _And I worry for you._

Irene's actual sight had never been very good, and had in fact worsened over time, but Charles caught the image she fed to him now of himself through the years, growing from a small child to the not-quite-adult that stood before her. Often there was that feeling of apprehension, of obligation, but still, always, affection.

Charles wearily rubbed his eyes. "Then why can't you just _say_ that. Why do you have to speak in riddles?"

Irene gave him a small smile. She reached out and patted his arm, unseeing.

"You act as though these things are revealed to me any clearer." 

 

~*~

 

Since his youth, Charles had grown used to Irene's occasional bursts of clairvoyance interrupting any number of their activities. His bath when he was younger, for example, or a strange fit-not-quite-delusion that awoke him in the middle of the night. This day, however, it was during their supper when Irene suddenly gasped and spasmed, fork falling from her hands and hitting the floor with a clatter.

"Irene?" Charles asked after a moment. He didn't dare try to go into her mind. The first, and only, time he had done that had seen him spit right back out again, feeling as though he'd aged and shrunk in the span of only moments.

She didn't answer him for a long while, even after, seemingly recovering, she took a new fork when he offered it to her and resumed their meal.  

When she did speak again it was only to say, "You weren't planning on going to work for Master Laughlan tomorrow, were you?"

"No," Charles said. "I had intended to spend the day studying with Hank." They had plans to go to the shallow ponds on the outskirts of town, to see if they could find all the specimens their teacher had mentioned in their recent lesson on diversity in plants and animals.

Irene gazed straight ahead, her milk-cast gaze dead eyed and serious. "Perhaps you should reconsider."

 

~*~

 

"These are amazing," said Hank, as he flipped through the leather bound book propped up on the bar at the Red Hen. In his hands he held a book of sketches. Charles had spent hours on them, meticulously detailing each leaf and appendage of the wildlife he'd encountered in the woods surrounding Irene's cottage. One of the benefits of living with a gifted woman, other than the aura of simultaneous respect and wariness it earned from their surrounding townsfolk, was that people left them alone, giving Charles plenty of space to roam.

"Yeah..." Charles sighed mournfully. He eyed the row of glasses set before him, rims and insides crusted with thick globs of yellow substance that he didn't even want to know what it was. Honestly, how could someone get a glass so filthy just by _drinking_ from it?

Hank continued to peruse Charles' notebook. At seventeen years old, Hank carried himself in a way that was exactly the opposite of how Charles did: where Charles was vain swagger and cheekiness, Hank was awkward and self-conscious, with long limbs and thick spectacles. Hank was so tall that he towered over all the other boys in their classes, earning him the nickname of "giant" and "beast." His other problem was his own gift, ape-like feet, which he kept wrapped in shoes he made himself out of fur and skins. Only Hank's parents, and Charles and, presumably, Irene, knew of his gift.

"So she didn't tell you why you had to be here today?" Hank asked, referring to Irene's not-subtly ordering him from their house on his day off.

Charles shook his head. "She does that sometimes - just 'suggests' that I do something and expects me to do it, no matter what I may have planned." He said this with all the sullenness that a teenage boy could project at being told to do anything he didn't want to.

"Oi," said Master Laughlan, bustling up from the basement, arms laden with a pile of dishes. "You're not dawdling are you, boy? I don't pay you to dawdle."

"You don't pay me at all," muttered Charles, but he picked up his rag again nevertheless.

As he resumed his cleaning, out of the corner of his eye he spied a familiar silhouette. Anna Marie, working in the kitchen with her brother. When she caught his eye, she smiled, a mischievous thing. It sent a wicked tingle down Charles' spine.

Charles winked at her.

Maybe it's not all so bad, he thought.

 

~*~

 

The Red Hen was full of its usual patrons that day, including one man who, over the years, had become such a permanent fixture that he was jokingly referred to as part of the decor. On any given day the man they called the "sea dog", whose name was really James Howlett, could be found occupying the small table at the furthest, most darkly shadowed corner of the pub. He wasn't a particularly tall man, but what he lacked in height he made up for in bulk, sporting "muscles upon muscles" as the women excitedly tittered, along with a beard and an overgrown mop of ragged hair. He never spoke to anyone except, inexplicably, Anna Marie, with whom he favored only grunts and growls as she served him his usual pint and basket of chips. Charles suspected it was because she was the only one of them brave enough to even approach the man.

Charles had, disappointingly, not managed to yet connect with Anna Marie. They'd been unusually busy. It seemed a ship had just come in from the Arran mainland, full of important people in fancy clothes, with accents and a way of speaking so unlike their own unique blend of Westshire English. It was so tempting to try and explore each of them; so many minds with a different flavor. They hovered at the perimeter of Charles' awareness like a tempting draught. But he didn't quite have the control to do both that _and_ his job. And to be honest, he was too impatient to try and learn.

So he contented himself with serving them as quickly as possible, his gift aiding in ensuring he got their orders right and got to them fast. There was a particular group of these men, dressed in traditional Arran fleet garb, black upon black, who were in the midst of a game of dice. The red-circled 'M' emblazoned on their shoulders signified they belonged to the Magistrate's personal ship.

"If he rolls a fiver, then I'm buyin' everyone a round," said one man, wobbling in his seat.

"Piss you're buyin' anything," squawked another. He was listing to the side so badly he was in near danger of falling off his seat. "Nobody ever beats the _voleur_ at his own game."

The _voleur,_ apparently, was the third man at their table. He looked the part of any romance hero; dark hair, dark eyes and a youthful face. But what intrigued Charles the most was that he wore gloves and had what looked like an ornate walking stick laid across his lap.

Briefly, Charles allowed his curiosity to scan over the _voleur_. Immediately, he drew back. This man, he realized with a rush, he too was,

"Gifted's ain't nothin but cheats you know," said the first sailor. "If he were a real man, he'd let the dice decide what way it wanted to roll, instead of using his tricks to get his way."

"He's not done anything yet," said the second.

"Not yet," said the first, "But it's bound to happen, it always does. And what can us normal people do about it, huh? Nothing, now that they're all out in the open. We're just supposed to pretend that they aren' freaks? Aren' against nature?"

The Magistrate, a man by the name of Stryker, had recently decreed that all gifted people were to be paid an extra sum if they could be enticed to join Arran's fleet. The goal was obvious from a military perspective, though of course it did not sit well with the existing soldiers, those regular people, who had been barely scraping by over the years.  

"Perhaps you should let the man make his move before you accuse him of cheating?" suggested Master Laughlan nervously, far too adept at predicting the stirrings of a fight in his midst.

The first man swiveled in his chair, eyes full of drunken anger. "Perhaps you'd better mind your own business, old man."

"This is my bar," said Master Laughlan. "You're disturbing my customers. This is my business."

All this, while the _voleur_ in question continued to sit in silence, absently rolling the dice between his fingers.

Charles sensed what was going to happen before it did, and for the first time he understood what it was that Irene must experience when she had her flashes of the Sight. There wasn't a clear picture, wasn't even a clear target. All he felt was the immediate, hot flash of anger; an unexpected burst, and then the Arran sailor had Master Laughlan in his grip, bearing down on the old man.

The pub burst into a sudden flurry of chaos, tables and chair screeching as they were thrown back. And then, suddenly, the bright glint of a knife as Master Laughlan fell to the floor.

Charles heard a scream, and turned to see Anna Marie standing in the kitchen doorway, her face frozen in shock. She started to move forward to where her father lay on the floor, but was grabbed by a strong, unexpected hand on her arm.

Howlett, for the first time anyone could recall, had left his seat. He turned so she was at his eye-level, her head tucked between his face and shoulder, only to abruptly let go when she stomped, hard, on his foot. Without looking back, Anna Marie ran through the kitchen. Charles sensed her mind, a flurry of confusion and grief and fear, as it flew out the rear door.

He wanted to be sick.

He gripped the bar top so hard his knuckles turned white, and every breath was bringing his stomach closer to his throat. There was so much noise, inside and outside his head; so much rage, he couldn't even begin to process it.

And then, as harshly as it began it seemed to stop, at the giant crash the door of the Red Hen made as it was flung open. The man who walked in then brought with him the weight of a silence so thick you could almost taste it.

This newcomer was, in a word, statuesque: tall and rangy, with bright eyes and a striking square jaw and angled features that were both disturbing and intimidating in their intensity. His steely gaze swept over the scene of muted chaos with no expression. And his mind...Charles couldn't _not_ reach out for it, couldn't help but try and touch...

And was repelled, instantly, by the feeling of ice.

The man's eyes met Charles' from across the room. Charles swallowed, moving down the bar towards the kitchen. Five feet was what stood between him and the alley beyond, to freedom, back to Irene. Slowly, trying to be as sneaky as possible, Charles inched toward it.

"That ain't a good idea, kid," said a growly voice, barely higher than a whisper. Charles looked up, but the only one there was Howlett, ragged countenance fixed firmly on the newcomer.

Had Howlett...

"Remy," said the newcomer. His voice was like flint, harsh and resonating off the walls. "Care to explain what's going on?"

A scrape of a chair and the _voleur_ turned.

"I sure don't have no clue, _mon capitan_ ," Remy said. "We was jus' playin a friendly game is all, when this one," he looked at the drunkard who'd attacked Master Laughlan, " _tuat t'en grosse bueche._ " He made a tutting sound. "I think the peoples' on our new ship don't like us much."

A muscle ticked in the man's jaw. After a moment, his eyes alighted on Master Laughlan, who was unconscious according to Charles' mind touch, lying on the floor.

"Is he dead?" the man asked.

Nobody seemed to want to be the one to go check. Remy, rising unsteadily from his chair, toed the old man with his boot. "Not sure."

"S'not dead," said Howlett. Everyone turned to look at him, stunned. "Will be soon, but he ain't dead yet."

It seemed everyone was holding their breath, afraid to move should they draw any attention to themselves.

"Is that..." Remy put his hand over his brow and squinted, overly dramatic, as though peering through the sun. " _Maitre_ , I think that's -"

"Logan," finished the man.

Howlett, or Logan, inclined his head briefly. "Max," he said.

_Max._

Charles looked once more, and was hit by a surge of something so strong it was like being submerged under freezing water.

He recalled things, then. Things he'd never quite forgotten; things that lurked in his dreams, always out of reach but there nonetheless. He remembered the woods, running between the trees and dancing under the stars. Carefree laughter; a pair of arms, thin but never cold, and the knowledge that no one would ever love him as much as the one whose arms they were.

 _Find him._ A cough, a weeze. _Find him, Charles._

I will, he'd told her then.

Looking at this man, as those grey eyes took on a shuttered cast, he suspected that he finally had.

 

\-----------

A/N: This fic was inspired by song "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by The Decemberists. Hope you enjoy, and feedback is appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter for those interested

_There are Foxes in the Henhouse (a Red, a White, a Black)..._

 

Anna Marie ran. She ran as fast as she could, as far as she dared while the tears in her eyes obscured the vision of the town around her. She could still feel the heat of moisture against her ear, the rough slide of coarse hair against her cheek. A barely audible voice, alcohol so thick on his breath she could taste it.

"Run," Howlett had said. "Run."

So she did.

She ran through the alley in the middle of Westshire, through the streets and down past the warf. There were people gathered there, merchants selling wares and trinkets. It seemed that nobody knew yet what had happened inside the Red Hen, inside her family's bar. Inconceivable, she thought wildly, and felt her throat constrict; these people were watching her run for her very life and all they could do was stare. Though none of that equaled what she'd felt then, at the sight of her father lying on the floor, blood spilling all around.

The edge of the woods came upon her, a shroud of darkness and trees completely obscured the sun. Her feet and her ankles were cut by roots and rocks, a feeling of cold clenching her chest with every labored breath.

She stopped, suddenly, at the edge of a great expanse of trees. There were voices up ahead. She could just make them out above the pounding of her heart.

"Savages, the lot of them," a man's voice was saying. His accent was thick in what the people of Westshire called _Arran elitism_ ; crisp and cool, with an air of authority that could be read as condescension. "What use it is, I ask you, to continue with this - this - _charade_ when we all know what the outcome will be."

"Have patience," said a voice, raspy and heavily accented. "It will be done, yes. _Net probl_ _èm_ ," 

"I don't want this just _done_ , I want it done right! And if Lehnsherr can't accomplish -"

"Sir," a female voice said, then, sharp and cutting. "There's someone else here."

A terrible silence fell over the woods. Anna Marie stuffed her fist in her mouth to try and stem the sharp heaving of her breath, part exertion, mostly fear. 

And suddenly there was the feeling of knives.

She gasped, her hands pressed to her temples. There was a loud _crack_ , the smell of smoke, thick and acrid, and when she looked up, she saw a man. Only he wasn't an ordinary man; he was red, with a forked tail and a horrible scar stretched across his face. He took one look at her terrified expression and smiled, his teeth long and sharp.

Before she knew what was happening, he'd reached out and grabbed her by the arm. Anna Marie was wrenched forward, turned over and over, and with another sharp _crack,_ ended up on her back, looking into the face of a woman with pale hair and a man with a patch over his eye.

She screamed.

"Emma, make her stop," said the man with the patch. The fair-haired woman touched her hand to Anna Marie's temple.

And it hurt, oh spirits did it _hurt._ Not at all like the gentle, teasing touch that she felt when Charles entered her mind. But she did fall silent, her mouth opening and closing with nothing coming out. _A mind-toucher,_ she thought wildly, deliriously, _another mind-toucher_ , and then everything went black.

 

~*~

 

Despite their obvious familiarity, the man, Max, and Howlett didn't seem either upset or glad to see one another.

"I thought you had gone with the sea," Max said blandly. His eyes, unyielding, carried a weight that spoke of a deep history between them. If Charles had to guess, he'd have said a painful one.

Howlett just shrugged.

For a brief moment, it looked as though Max would say more. He appeared to reconsider, though, when it became apparent that the entire crowd of the Red Hen, including the still barely-there Master Laughlan, were hanging on every word. His expression shuttered. "This is a conversation better left for private," he said instead. His tone indicated there was to be no arguing the matter.

Max straightened and looked to the rest of the bar. Charles shrank back at the severity he seems to exude, then, when he announced,

"As many of you know, these past fourteen years the Kingdom has attempted to negotiate for a trade route through the Genoshan Territories."

For as long as anyone could remember, the Kingdom of Arran had been at odds with the various tribes of Genosha. Some said it was a feud that dated back to the founding of the Kingdom, when the first Arrans settled lands that were already occupied by these mysterious peoples. Others claimed the Genoshans were Arrans themselves, who had split from the Kingdom after the emergence of the first gifted in their communities. In Westshire, they were taught that the Genoshans in the surrounding woods were to be left alone no matter what.

Max continued,

"Magistrate Stryker and I have personally traveled to each of the Genoshan keeps and met with their tribal heads, including the one just north of Westshire." Max's lip curled slightly, distaste evident. Charles could almost see the memory of that visit by the sheer hatred Max had of it. "As we speak, the Magistrate is preparing to finalize an...agreement...that will secure free passage for every Arran from one end of the Kingdom to the other. This requires infrastructure. This requires labor, and funds." He paused. "Most importantly, this requires fortitude."

Howlett, it seemed, caught on faster than anyone else as to what Max was driving at.

"These people ain't much for hard labor, Lehnsherr," he said. "They're simple people, fishermen and farmers. You want soldiers, you better look elsewhere."

Remy chuckled, and Max's jaw clenched.

"As glad as I am to see that ten years lost hasn't diminished your understanding of the Kingdom's duties, I will thank you to keep your protests to yourself," said Max. "And it's Captain Lehnsherr, if you please."

Howlett growled, causing Charles to jump back instinctively. Max remained unaffected.

"In a day's time, we will be recruiting down at the shipyards," he concluded. The word itself was said in a way that indicated there would be little actual choice given to those who were picked. "We are seeking qualified men to join us as we work to expand the Kingdom's reach.

"Of course," and here, his cold steel eyes lit upon Charles. "We will give priority to those who possess certain...gifts."

Charles swallowed, his stomach sinking.

Max nodded sharply. He made to turn away, but stopped short at the coughing that began to bubble up from the floor.

"Clean him up," Max said to Howlett, pointing to where Master Laughlan was trying to roll over.  "And Logan - make sure you are down at the docks tomorrow. The Magistrate wants everyone of eligibility in attendance. No exceptions. That goes for the rest of you as well," his gaze lifted to take in the rest of the bar. "Should you fail to be present in time for the trials, your absence will be noted and dealt with accordingly."

With that, Max swept out, the door of the Red Hen closing behind him as noisily as when he had entered. Charles' feet were rooted to the spot. He felt sick, with the fear and dread of everyone around him as well as his own.

A gentle tutting noise and Remy began to collect his things from the table, staff in one hand. He threw down the dice still in his palm and lifted up a few cards, shining white against his dark gloves. " _Mais_ , it was a fiver. I woulda' like to have seen you buy us a drink." He winked at one of the drinking companions across from him. 

"Get out," snarled Howlett.

"Alright, alright," Remy held his hands up, spinning the staff lazily, dangerously. "See you all tomorrow. _Fais do-do_ , sleep well." The door opened and shut as he followed the Captain out the door.

Everyone inside the bar was silent. The shock was so thick it was palpable, like an air of sludge so oppressive it weighed one down.

"Trials?" said one of the men, eventually. "What - what did he mean?"

"Nothin' good," said Howlett. He picked up the mug of beer Anna Marie had set for him from the table and drained its final dregs in a long pull, slamming the glass down so hard it cracked.

"I suggest you all get as much rest as you can," he said. "If you got kids, hug 'em. If you got wives, fuck 'em. You might not get to again." He strolled forward and hauled Master Laughlan to his feet, tucking the frail man under his arm.

"You," Howlett said, nodding at Charles. "Get the door."

Numbly, Charles complied. When Howlett finally drew near, he was close enough for Charles to see that beneath his rough and bearded visage the man's skin was surprisingly unwrinkled, yet he still had the weighted bearing of a man who had lived long years, the majority of them unkind.

_Ten years_ _gone_ , Max had said.

This man, who had been a fixture not unlike a random stranger or an alley stray in Charles' life for as long as he could recall, had a past that was somehow linked to the object of Charles' vengeance.

Once in the open air, Howlett lifted his nose to the sky and sniffed, gaze sharp as he eyed the woods. He turned to Charles.

"You might want to get home, kid. Quick." 

 

~*~

 

She was a child, playing at being Arran soldiers with her brothers, using the kitchen's heavy cast-iron pots as helmets while they ran through the empty dining room of her parent's new acquisition, the now-defunct Bear's Paw: the pub whose owner had died after the great blight struck Westshire and killed many people. Her mother and father had been saving for years, had finally scrimped up enough money to buy the place. It was going to be their very own, the Red Hen, Anna Marie thought to herself as she dodged the swipe of a broom handle from her brother; she was going to work there every day after school. The thought made her giddy, made her laugh and laugh and laugh...

She awoke to the sound of steel hitting steel. A cool breeze brushed against her face, and her eyes snapped open. The pale haired woman was staring down at her. Her eyes were a cool blue, not the warm rich blue of Charles' but more a winter sea, and she had the fair features of a woman who would look young forever. The thought flashed through Anna Marie's mind that she was quite beautiful, but also very scary.

"Why thank you, sugar," said the woman.

Anna Marie recoiled, remembering everything, then. She was lying on the ground with her head propped on a mossy boulder. She could smell the wetness of the earth, the heavy tang of dirt and mud, and the rocks were prickles of pain where they dug into her exposed skin. The clanking sounds...they were coming from the red-skinned man who was off to the side, a dagger suspended by his tail in mid-air as he used another blade to sharpen it. The two of them wore uniforms nearly identical to the sailors from the Red Hen, including the emblazoned red "M" on their shoulders. The woman's uniform, however, was pure white, and the man's sported what seemed like a dozen extra holsters, all of them holding knives.

He asked the woman something in a language that Anna Marie did not understand.

" _Da_ ," answered the woman, her eyes never leaving Anna Marie's. "Just frightened. She was inside the bar. It seems that our _vory_ has been causing trouble." She paused for a moment, and narrowed her eyes, almost imperceptibly. Anna Marie shuddered as a shiver of cold swept over her entire body, like one feels after a wind on wet skin.

"My name is Emma," said the woman after a moment. She inclined her head slightly towards the red-skinned man. "This is Azazel."

Using his tail, the red-skinned man flicked his knife in a salute. " _Privyet_ ," he said. 

The sound of leaves crunched by her ear, and Anna Marie turned her head. Her vision was filled with a pair of large black boots. The man with the eye-patch was standing over her, a frown of great distaste etched across his face. He was an older man, brown hair flecked with gray and deep wrinkles set around his mouth and eyes. 

"And she's...?"

"Not gifted, sadly," said Emma. She straightened from where she was crouched near Anna Marie and delicately wiped her hands on her uniform.

The man with the eye-path sighed, irritable. "Well then, take care of her. We need to get this moving along. The last thing I need is to be discovered once more. This time it could be by someone who matters."

His tone, Anna Marie realized with a growing dread was dangerous, _dismissive_ , and it sent a fresh wave of panic through her. 

"No," she said, her voice hoarse. She swallowed roughly, hands clenching as she tried to sit up and said again, desperately, "No, please, I - I can work. I can - can cook, and clean, and -" _Please don't kill me_ , she thought. Her eyes found Emma's, willing her, begging her to hear the way that Charles could somehow hear when she wished hard enough.

Emma stared back at her dispassionately for what seemed an eternity, before she quirked an eyebrow and said, almost lazily, "Perhaps she can be of some use after all."

The man with the patch rolled his eyes. "Your business is your own, Frost," he said. "So long as it doesn't interfere with mine, do whatever you please."

Anna Marie was hauled swiftly to her feet, Azazel's hand clenched around her upper arm like a vice, his thick black nails digging in to her skin. Up close, he smelled of something dark; foreign spices and tobacco.

One hand placed behind her back, Emma bowed. She did not quite make her back parallel to the ground as was custom, but her stance was somehow regal regardless. "Thank you, Magistrate."

Leaning in close to Anna Marie's ear, Azazel whispered, " _Vsyo nishtyak_. Say goodbye, little one."

There was a _crack_ , and they were gone.

 

~*~

 

Azazel deposited them in the middle of yet another part of the forest. She didn't recognize the surroundings; by the rich wood pines with their sharp scented needles and the subtle smell of the sea, Anna Marie guessed they may still be in Westshire. But there was no telling where they really were.

She landed hard on her knees, head spinning from their abrupt flight. Her stomach was vying with her heart as to which would be next out her throat. Whatever magic it was that let Azazel disappear himself left behind an odor that was most foul.

Azazel looked down at her, a tall shroud of blood red and black in the darkness. What little light there was played off his eyes, making them shine an odd, icy blue.

"Is okay to be sick, _kr_ _óshka_ ," he said in that deep raspy voice, part amusement, part boredom. "Is normal first time."

"N-normal," she said, staring hard at the ground in case it decided to move once again. "None of this is _normal_."

To her surprise, Azazel chuckled. She froze when she felt his hand atop her head, a gentle pat with his sharp fingers as if she were some sort of animal that needed reassurance. She was, predictably, not at all reassured. 

"Everything will be good, yes?" he said, right before a giant explosion went off in the distance.

Anna Marie screamed, rocked by the blast, and was swiftly grabbed around the middle as she tried to get to her feet, intending to run away.

"Let me go!" she shouted. She dug her nails into Azazel's arms where they held her tight and kicked her legs as much as she was able. He was strong, though, despite his deceptively genial size, and she realized that in addition to his magic he had something else she did not consider: his tail, which he brought up to her eye level and held it there, a sharp point between her eyes, the tip digging into the skin of her forehead.

"Quiet," he said, and she sucked in a deep breath, swallowing harshly.

It seemed like an eternity before he let her go. She slumped back down to the floor, her legs crumpling beneath her like a dead weight. Her limbs felt as though they'd never move again, no matter what happened. Azazel stood somewhere near her, she couldn't see where, but she knew by the smell. It mingled with the scent of smoke on the wind.

Abruptly a voice called out, "Azazel."

Azazel turned sharply and drew himself up, facing the trees. There was a rustling, the sound of many branches being crushed beneath a heavy weight, and abruptly there was another man standing there. He was wearing a deep red cloak, his eyes shrouded by its heavy hood; the bottom of it brushed the ground and left trails like smoke in the dirt.

"Azazel," he said again, and his very voice made Anna Marie wish for the powers of a gift, then, so that she might will the ground to open and swallow her whole. It slid down her spine, caused the hair on the back of her arms to stand on end, and clenched her deep inside.

She remembered, abruptly, the small mouse that she'd encountered as a child in the Red Hen's kitchen; how it had cowered before her, trembling, as she studied it. She meant the creature no ill will - she was simply curious - but there was nowhere for it to run, and it knew it. She knew it too, then, that she held the power of its life in her hands. The idea made her sick.

But this man...he was no benevolent observer. She knew that with the certainty by which that little mouse knew its death by her foot.

"I see you've brought a guest," the man said. He took a step towards her, and Anna Marie nearly reached out for Azazel's legs to stop him from moving, to keep him between herself and this stranger.

They exchanged words it that language she did not understand. The man's mouth, for that was all she could see of his face, opened in a brilliant sneer, teeth so bright there seemed to be more of them than humanly possible. 

"She is not gifted," he said. Azazel shook his head in confirmation.

The man let his sneer curdle into something nasty, and sighed the sigh of a man with many burdens. "Sometimes I think that no matter how long I live, I will never fully comprehend the mind of a woman." His head bowed in her direction, Anna Marie could feel his gaze as he eyed her critically, appraisingly. It made her skin crawl. "And yet..." he said, after a long moment, "I suppose I can see why Emma wants her."

"I am to take her to ship?" Azazel asked.

The man waved a hand as if he could not possibly care less what Azazel did with her.

"Unfortunately," he said. "I am stuck here until after our dear Erik has his little tournament tomorrow. If I didn't know better, I might wonder what caused the man to be so cruel. Still, I do hope this time there aren't as many casualties. The natives don't take kindly to being put to the test of sword and word does spread rather fast, even in a backwater village such as this."

He removed his hood, then, and raked a hand through his hair. His eyes were bright; feverish, as if he was too full of an energy he could scarce control.

Those eyes turned to Anna Marie.

"Take her to the ship and make sure she is given to Armando's care. I want her acclimated to her new position as soon as possible." His mouth twisted into a cruel smile. "She may not be gifted, but I'm certain she will be of use in...other ways."

Anna Marie shuddered, revolted, because she had a horrible, terrible suspicion of just what he meant.

Azazel nodded once, sharply, before he strode to where she was crumpled on the forest floor. He hauled her up by her arm and whispered something she couldn't quite hear over the pounding of her heart.

She had barely a moment to brace herself before they were gone again.

 

~*~

 

When Charles arrived at Irene's cottage on the outskirts of Westshire, he found nothing but splinters of wood and a pile of ash.

Everything was quiet. The woods were empty; no signs of life for as far as he could see. Even the trees were silent, their bark a deathly black and their limbs as thin as brittle splinters. They looked likely to blow away with even the most gentle wind. Charles, wild and fraught, grabbed the first bit of rubble he neared and began to tear through it.

"Irene!" he screamed. "Irene!" Nothing answered back to him, not aloud nor in his head. Every piece of debris he uncovered led to yet another: a pot, a pan, books and clothes. All were covered with a sheen of black ash that stuck to his fingers.

His heart constricted, then, when his hands felt the softness of a familiar fabric. Irene's shawl, blue color smudged grey with soot, the ends tattered and torn.

"No..." he whispered. Tears were streaming down his face. "No..."

"Charles?"

He spun around, panic overwhelming him. Hank was standing there, pale and looking just as sick as he himself felt.

"H-Hank," Charles gasped. Hank crept forward, and only then did Charles notice that he was bleeding, a cut across his arm and his clothing slashed. "My God, Hank, what happened?"

"The soldiers..." said Hank. He fell to the ground beside Charles, his tall, lanky body seeming so small just then. "They came to my house. They - they were looking for gifted. My parents...they told me to run, so I did..." So great was his friend's grief that Charles saw the snippets of his memory without even trying. He swallowed.

"Your parents...are they...?"

Hank hung his head. "I don't know." He took off his glasses and furiously wiped away tears.

Hank always hated his gift. Internally, Charles knew, he wondered if one could even _call_ it that, this ailment that possessed him. Ever since his Event - when he was climbing trees in the woods and had a misstep, when he nearly fell to his death but somehow _didn't,_ when he awoke in the Westshire infirmary to the stricken faces of those around him - he had longed to be normal. This was something that Charles could logically understand yet never really grasp. His sister, his _Raven_ , was all the more beautiful for how little she looked like everyone else.

Though to Hank, this was yet another curse brought upon by his gift.

Charles swallowed.  His throat burned from the ashes. Together, they sat in the horrible stillness of what remained of Charles' home. 

"I found him," Charles said after a while.

"What?"

"I _found_ him. The man, the one who..."

Hank's eyes widened. He, as Charles oldest friend - which meant quite a lot even if they were but seventeen - knew all about the man from the sea.

"He's here?"

Charles nodded, and relayed the events as they happened in the Red Hen. When he got to the bit about Master Laughlan - and it _ate_ at him, that he was there instead of here where he could have done something to protect Irene - he began to shake. Charles had never been one to court anger. Irritation, certainly, and impatience; he had the reputation of a mingler and a rover, and he was often willful and dismissive. But he had never been overtly cruel, and he had never felt anything as strong as what he felt now, this rage that consumed him.

He looked down at the blue shawl in his hands.

"He's taken everything from me," he whispered.

Hank placed his hand on Charles' shoulder.

"What are we going to do?"

Charles looked up at his friend and could see that beneath his fear was a determination, a newfound purpose which ignited him like a light from within, that perfectly matched his own.

He knew then, _exactly_ what they what was to be done.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for violence, kidnapping


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of the chapter for those interested

_A man with wants can always be bought_

 

The man they called Captain Lehnsherr stood atop a smoldering pile of overturned carriages, warped and bent beyond recognition like a dozen bird cages smashed. He wore his ship's uniform, fitted black with the Magistrate's mark, and around his shoulders wound a magenta sash that indicated his rank. Traditionally, Arran fleets were designated by their colors: blue for the protectors of the shore, yellow for the traders, a muted purple for the negotiators; black was only ever used for those of the highest military regard. Though these past few years, with the ever increasing conflict between Magistrate Stryker and the Genoshans, those who wore the color were also painted with a brush of suspicion. It was hard for some to separate the guise of sailor from that of mercenary. Lehnsherr's crew, all of them pledged to the Magistrate's ship, _Cerebro_ , appeared to the simple people of Westshire like a cross between a soldier and pirate.

Charles and Hank came upon the scene already in progress: the trials, as Lehnsherr had called them, whereby the male citizens of Westshire were being put to a test in the courtyard overlooking the shipyards. Normally an area bustling with the activity of markets and trade, it now appeared abandoned; it's storefronts shuttered and bolted for extra measure.  It seemed as though all of Westshire's men were in attendance, ranging from Master Smithings, the town's apothecary, to the Bradley boys, twins aged but seven.

Lehnsherr surveyed the courtyard with that unaffected gaze that Charles had begun to associate with his impenetrable mind, grey eyes touching upon each face of frightened and worried Westshire townsfolk. To his left and slightly behind stood the thief from the Red Hen, Remy, hands covered with elbow-length black gloves and the long, mysterious staff twirling lazily between his fingers. To Lehnsherr's right stood a younger man with messy blonde hair and a hardened expression, the scowl on his face almost nasty enough to rival Lehnsherr's. Charles estimated the boy couldn't be more than seventeen himself.

"This way," said Charles, guiding Hank towards an open slot near the front of the gathered crowd. Hank, while relatively thin, was taller and broader than Charles, and was able to push their way through the throng with minimal fuss. Also, not everyone was as eager as they to have a front row seat to the dismay that was sure to follow.

A shrill whistle pierced the air, followed by the gasps and muffled yells of the crowd at a loud _crack_ and a giant puff of black, acrid smelling smoke. Charles' mouth fell open in shock as the smoke cleared and left in wits wake three people: a man, skin as red as a Westshire cardinal, with a pronged tail, a woman with fair hair dressed all in white, and an elderly man with an eye patch. Charles felt a twinge of recognition at the last man's severe countenance, but couldn't recall from where.

Standing beside Charles, Hank gasped. "That's the Magistrate," he whispered.

"The Magistrate..." said Charles. He narrowed his eyes and let his power seep outward, curious tendrils licking along the sides of the elderly man's mind. Immediately - as when he first encountered Lehnsherr in the Red Hen - he was met with the repellent feeling of ice. Still, the block was not enough to stop him from gleaming a small fraction of the man's being, a sense of his purpose held so deep and so strong that it shone like a flame, dangerous and near fatal in its intensity.

At the appearance of the three newcomers, Lehnsherr finally broke his stoic silence. Addressing the crowd, he lifted a hand to quell them into quiet.

"Gathered people of Westshire, calmers of the shore," he began, naming them in their town's maxim. "By order of the Magistrate, acting in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Arran, blessed by sun and sea, we hereby call upon you noble citizens and enact our right of fealty. Every man who shares the Kingdom's blood, who reaps his blessings from its soil, who holds his most valued possessions by its laws, are themselves bound to serve the Kingdom in its hour of need."

 Lehnsherr paused and looked towards the Magistrate. The man had sprawled himself in a chair - the only one that Charles could see, with a thick red cushion and arms that were shaped like lion's heads - with one hand cupped to cove his exposed eye from the harsh sunlight. His posture spoke of immense boredom, as if this was something he'd seen done a thousand times. He waved a hand dismissively for Lehnsherr to continue.

"An accounting must be made," continued Lehnsherr. "The Kingdom's needs _will_ be met, and we have no wish to do so with anything other than the utmost ease."

We could simply take what we want, was what Charles took from this, so be thankful this is how we're going about it instead.

"Now," Lehnsherr said, "I imagine word has already spread, but for those of you who have not already heard, allow me to formally introduce my crew." He stepped to the edge of the carriage-stage, one foot placed higher as he leveraged himself standing impossibly tall, eagle-sharp. "I am Captain Erik Lehnsherr of the _Cerebro_. I am a sworn servant of his Magistrate William Stryker, entrusted by the Lord to bring everlasting peace to our Kingdom. To my left is my first officer, Remy LeBeau."

The thief waved his hand jauntily. " _Bonjour_ ," he said, smiling out at all of them with a debonair cheekiness, as if this was all a simple game of fun.

"To my right is my quartermaster, Alex Summers."

The blonde, angry boy narrowed his eyes and deepened his scowl.

Hank's brow furrowed, and he leaned down to whisper in Charles ear, "I thought you said his name was Max."

"It was..." said Charles, memory racing back, searching. "That's what Howlett called him..."

Charles turned to search the crowd, reaching out for the somewhat familiar jumble of the sea dog's mind. He found him sitting far off, hidden in the midst of a group of the town's most infirm, including - Charles swallowed - Master Laughlan. His torso was wrapped in a thick swath of bandages; his hair, normally tied back neatly at the base of his skull, hung loose and limp around his face. The man looked as pale and sickly has he had the day before, lying on the floor of his own bar.

"We will be conducting an...auction...of sorts over the next several hours."

Lehnsherr held out his hand, in which the red skinned man placed a roll of parchment. He eyed the crowd as he unrolled it, his face betraying nothing. "As you are all at your core people of the sea, it will come as no surprise when I say that life aboard a ship cannot give man everything. He may have shelter from the storm, he may have food and water, but there will always be something that he craves. And a man who craves spends half his time wishing for what he does not have and half his time plotting how to get what he wants. Therefore, we have instituted a policy of sorts, whereby the Magistrate has granted select members of the _Cerebro's_ crew the opportunity to make their case for additional resources. These resources can be either goods that will aid us in our quest, such as food and money, or people, to be immediately recruited into service."

A murmur rose among the crowd. Charles noted, suddenly, the way the crewmen standing farther behind Lehnserr on the decks of the docked _Cerebro_ were watching the proceedings with naked hunger, their faces a mix of greed and longing. More than a few had weapons in hand, their knuckles white-gripped with impatience.

Charles felt faint.

"Should the latter be chosen," said Lehnsherr. "You will, of course, have the opportunity to dispute the crewmember's claim on you. This will be done via a trial: a fight to the finish, whereby the winner will be settled."

 It seemed as though he looked to each Westshire man in turn, and only when his eyes lit upon Charles did he break, suddenly, into the cruelest of grins that Charles had ever thought to see.

"I suggest you all get comfortable."

 

~*~

 

It began with a fight that ended in death. That was the first, but nowhere near the last.

There was a part of Hank that couldn't believe this was actually happening. Fighting for sport - because that's what this was, mere _sport_ , in all its horrid, grisly gory - was so antiquated a notion in Westshire that nobody had seen it coming. Hank certainly hadn't, and he was willing to bet that neither had Charles, by far the most perceptive of either of them due to his gift, if the way his friend was trembling was anything to go by.

"Dear lord," whispered Charles. He shivered, pale, thin arms wrapped around his middle. His eyes fluttered shut every so often, and he already had turned away and be sick several times over the course of at least two hours. In his head, Hank felt the power of Charles' mind-touch as it spiked sharply with that first casualty - a poor soul from the fishermen's ranks that neither of them knew - and with each death subsequently after. It became apparent to all of them, then, that the trials were not so much about replenishing the _Cerebro's_ ranks, but rather about giving its crew an opportunity for bloodshed, uncomplicated and without the pressures of  their own demise as they would experience in battle.

And the simple people from the isles were, so far, no match for the hardened men from the sea.

"Are you alright, Charles?" Hank whispered.

His friend shook his head, obviously unwell. But Charles, ever stubborn, was determined nonetheless to see this through.

"We must get on that ship," Charles said. "No matter the cost. We _must_ get on that ship."

Hank swallowed tightly, and nodded.

As the next man stepped forward, it became apparent to them all that he had already selected the man from Westshire whom he wished to test.

"James!" he called, loud and harsh as he stepped forward off the deck of the _Cerebro._ The other crewmembers scattered like ants out of his way. He wasn't as tall as one might expect from a man who garnered such fear, standing only as high as Lehnsherr's chin with a stocky build, compact muscles, and a dark beard that framed his face in such a way that he appeared animal-like. When he smiled, his teeth were as sharp as fangs.

Lehnsherr eyed the man. "Creed," he said, checking the name against his list. "You have requested an addition to the ranks?"

"I request an addition to the ranks, all right," said Creed. He glared down the deck at the crowd, and Hank knew his keen, wild eyes were searching for a very specific someone. "I request repayment of a debt, Lehnsherr. A bill that's been due for a long time. I wanna collect."

Creed hopped off the _Cerebro_ and landed square in the center of the courtyard, such a large jump that would have no doubt broken the legs of a mere ordinary man. Another gifted, Hank realized, as he watched Creed begin to roll the sleeves of his uniform up his forearms. The skin there was covered in a patchwork of scars, some that looked as though they'd been there for years and others that were clearly fresh.

When nobody stepped forward to face him, Creed threw back his head and cackled, an untamed howling sound. "You gonna come out, Jimmy-boy? Or do I havta' start clawin' my way through lookin' for ya?"

There was a rustle amongst the gathered Westshire crowd, and Howlett stepped forward. Hank couldn't see the expression he wore behind his overgrown beard, but his posture was surprisingly neutral in the face of such a foe. At the sight of him, Creed showed a fanged-toothed smile.

"Hello, Jimmy," he said.

Howlett appeared, then, as a man who strived to fight the entire weight of the Kingdom on his shoulders.

"Hello Victor," he said, voice softer and more full of emotion than anyone had ever heard from him. The sound, so defeated, was nothing like any of the unkind grunts and growls they had all attributed to him over the years. The two of them stood facing one another for what seemed like an eternity, Creed's feral eyes raking over Howlett's form, and Howlett examining this man in turn. It was an oddly intimate moment in the middle of a day of such bloodshed, as if the two of them were saying years' worth of things to the other with merely a glance.

And then, of course, the moment was shattered when Creed attacked.

He came for Howlett with a growl, one arm extended high above his head as he leaped forward, vaulting off his legs like a great hellcat. Howlett rolled out of the way just in time, Creed's arm slamming in to the ground where he once stood with the narrowest of margins. The soil, when he uncurled his fist, sported deep gouges from his fingers.

Creed snarled, angry, "You gonna run away from me Jimmy? You gonna be a _coward_?" He advanced toward Howlett again, preparing to strike. "You ain't getting away this time. I can promise you that."

"Victor..." Howlett said, backing away from each of Creed's advances until he nearly fell into the line of watching Westshire observers. The men there shrank back to avoid any contact with either of them.

Creed growled, and jumped forward again. They continued like that for a dozen blows: for every thrust, every swipe of Creed's deadly fingers, Howlett would retreat, guiding Creed in a circle around the impromptu arena the courtyard had become. Eventually, however, he found himself backed into a corner, trapped underneath the stage where Lehnsherr, the Magistrate, and their party stood.

"Nowhere for you to run, now," Creed said. He lifted his hand, ready to bring it down - and Howlett just stood there, showing no signs of moving, like he would just let it happen - when a voice rang out from above.

"Hold!"

The woman in white stepped forward, sights fixed on the two fighting men below.

"Emma?" prompted Lehnsherr. "You have an objection?"

"Yes," said the woman, stepping forward, head held high despite the lecherous whistles that broke out amongst the gathered men. The way she ignored them spoke of long, tedious experience with such things. She held the Captain's gaze unflinchingly, arms held rigid by her side, and when she spoke her voice rang clear as a bell. "I petition that this man's life be spared on the condition that he pledges loyalty to the _Cerebro_ for the rest of his days."

Creed laughed, as did plenty of other _Cerebro_ crewmen, their muttered insults of _stupid bitch_ and _fuckin' the Captain, fuckin' the Magistrate_ reaching Hank's ears. Emma ignored them all, speaking her case directly to the Captain, and unspoken, to the Magistrate overseeing all.  

"While I understand the need for these public displays of cruelty, I trust you will find that in this particular case the gains to be had from sparing his life are greater than the satisfaction his death may bring to few. This man," - she gestured towards Howlett - "can offer us much more as a _living_ member of our crew than as a trophy kill for an...unrestrained animal."

Creed growled. "Fuck you!" he yelled, enraged.

The woman's eyes flashed, acknowledging Creed for the first time. "I don't see any need for that, sugar," she said. She stepped forward, eyeing Creed boldly. "I am requesting a crewman's right to vote on sparing the dog's life."

The boy to Lehnsherr's right, Alex, who had remained silent and unmoved for the entirety of the trials so far, was the one to laugh this time.

"You're not a member of the crew," he sneered. "You don't get a vote."

"Then I will pledge for him," said the red skinned man. His lips curled in a nasty smile. "Unless the little _huesos_ thinks to challenge."

Alex bristled, stepping forward prepared to fight but was stopped by Lehnsherr's hand on his arm.

"No," he said. He and Emma shared a long look. "Though Mistress Frost is not a member of our crew, she and hers are our companions aboard the _Cerebro_ ; she shares our concern for the ship's health and function, and though it is tempting...we cannot fault her logic. We gain more from the addition of a...practiced crewman, than from yet another dead Westshire body." Lehnsherr glanced down at Howlett with an expression that said while he argued in favor of sparing his life it wasn't really what he wanted. "He is saved."

A mocking smile touched his lips, then, and he added, "At the very least, we won't need to explain to him the terms of Mistress Frost's generosity."

Howlett arched one bushy eyebrow. "You're fucking stupid if you think I'm gonna bow and scrape to that witch," he said. He cracked the knuckles on large hands, so loud they echoed across the din. "I'd prefer dyin'."

There were scattered chuckles of Lehnsherr's crew, the man himself muttering, "We know the likelihood of that happening, don't we?"

"Think of it like this," Emma said. "How many of your new friends are going to be joining our ranks? Ten? Twenty? Given your...experience, don't you think it would be better for them to have a guiding hand, or would you leave them to learn a ship's life at the mercy of men like that," she gestured toward Creed.

Howlett's jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists. He weighed the woman's words, and came to a conclusion.

"No kids," he said. He came to edge of the carriage-stage and looked up, right into the Captain's eyes, defiant. "I'll join your crew, but I want your word that you won't take any kids from this town. Not a single one, Lehnsherr. I mean it."

Lehnsherr held Howlett's gaze, and eventually inclined his head in a slight nod. "Agreed."

"Never woulda thought you'd grow a heart, Jimmy," said Creed, still amused. He brushed his fingers over the leather of his uniform, nails leaving sharp scratches in the dark surface.

"Who'da thought, the Wolverine gettin' soft."

 

~*~

 

The Westshire library was barely a room deserving of its name. Tucked in the back of parchment shop, consisting of three shelves stacked high with rolls of paper and bottles of ink, it was where the local scribe could often be found transcribing messages to be sent across the Kingdom via horse, pigeon or vessel; securing trade and requesting supplies. Charles discovered the shop early on in their schooling and informed Hank of it shortly after, the two of them spending countless hours poring over ledgers from past merchants and their detailed accounting of the comings and goings from the Westshire port. The most fascinating of stories weren't found in the import records of grain and rice, nor was it found in the census of new arrivals to intended to make Westshire their home.

Rather it was found in the accounts of their time at sea, when the ships on which they had taken passage encountered the most fearsome terrors of the deep.  

Before the blight, before gifted were known throughout the Kingdom, before they were actively recruited by the Magistrate for his cause, they were only known in whispers. A curse upon the Kingdom, some said, cast by the mystical, primitive Genoshans; innocent towns and ships falling prey to monsters with abilities that were not, could not be possible.  

And, the scribes wrote, these terrors of the sea had monikers. All of them notorious enough, terrifying enough that the very ink with which their epithets were written revealed a shaking hand.

Avalanche, Cyclops, Toad, Crucible, Cable, Psylock, Deathstrike.

Later: Azazel, Magneto, Havok, Ice Man, Sabretooth, White Queen.

And the Wolverine, a beast so ferocious that he would slaughter anything in his path. A monster  who killed women and children, who rendered his enemies limb from limb with inhuman strength, who set fires to entire villages and watched from the shore as the people ran screaming into the water where they were picked off one by one, devoured by the waves or by the sharks.

Few had seen the creature and lived to tell the tale, but those who did brought back a knowledge that was even worse than the deeds it had done.

That the creature could not be killed.

 

~*~

 

The final names on Lehnsherr's list were read when the sun had fallen half from the sky, orange and red lighting upon the waves so they appeared as flames. The courtyard was much emptier now, many Westshire men having either fallen or been chosen - through the benevolence of the sailors who bested them - for the _Cerebro's_ crew, but there was still a healthy crowd of observers. Hank could only marvel, disgusted, at how the same people who began the day hidden in their homes had now made their way to the scene, savage spectators drawn to bloodsport.

He and Charles had yet to be called forth, and he held a hope - small and faint - that they may yet escape the day with their lives. In Charles' case, with the remainder of his sanity.

It figured, then, that the next name Lehnsherr called would change everything for both of them.

The dying light cast a copper glow to Lehnsherr's hair as he bent his head to read the words on the parchment.

"Mister Essex," he called, a faint curl tilting the corner of his lips. "Please come forward and state your claim."

Hank, along with the rest of the spectators, looked to the deck of the _Cerebro,_ expecting another of its crew to step forward as had done the ones before. Instead, a man emerged from the Westshire crowd: tall and pale, with a shaved head that gleamed like an oyster's pearl. His arms were wrapped in a black cloth that stretched around his shoulders and fell to the floor, and his neck was cover by a high, stiff collar that brushed the bottom of his chin. The only skin he showed was that of his face, gaunt cheekbones and deep set eyes skeletal in appearance.

Essex inclined his head in a small bow as he faced the stage.

"Thank you, Captain," he said. His voice was quiet and silky, spoken barely in a whisper, yet Hank could somehow hear him perfectly. "I beg the pardon of the Magistrate for my appearance. I was in such haste to explore this gentle clime, I fear I did not prepare myself accordingly." His face took on a distant look, as if he was seeing past them all. "Time passes so strangely in this land. It is quite easy to see how one might find their way here unbeknownst to his own self and be gone for years."

The Magistrate, still lazily sprawled, lifted his head enough to give Essex a look of puzzled confusion, and Lehnsherr, for the first time Hank could bring to mind, let his annoyance show on his face.

"Have you a request?" the Captain asked impatiently. "There are many petitioners the Magistrate must attend to before the sun sets."

Essex returned Lehnsherr's curled lip with one of his own, amused, and clearly without an ounce of either fear or respect for the Captain's position.

"Indeed I do," he said. "Indeed I do."

Essex unwound his hands from within the black wrap and held them aloft, thin and bony fingers stretched towards the sky like spires.

All at once the courtyard was filled with a heavy fog. Hank coughed, bringing his hands to cover his mouth and nose to stem the vapor from invading his lungs. It didn't work: rather it seemed like the fog forced its way down regardless. Several observers were heaving, great big hacking coughs as if they were drowning. Beside him, Charles was breathing so heavily that Hank feared he might faint.

"Please, gentle souls, do not fret," said Essex, his voice floating from all around them. Hank's glasses were now useless due to a sheen of moisture from the fog and he squinted as best he could. Essex was still in the center of the courtyard, arms outstretched. In his mind, then, as if the words were being spoke  directly into his ear, Hank heard Charles' voice,

"...ot real, it's not...real...not..."

And abruptly, the fog cleared.

"That one," whispered Essex. He turned on his heel, a great wraith in shrouded black, and fixed his sunken eyes on the spot where Hank and Charles stood. Essex extended one long finger, and announced, "there are gifted among the tender ones, my Magistrate. I request the most precious of them for my use."

A cold fear clenched Hank's gut, and blindly he reached for Charles' hand. His friend's palm was cold and clammy, just as his surely was too.

At this, the Magistrate perked up. "Gifted here, you say?"

Essex inclined his head, not once removing his unsettling gaze.

Stryker laughed, delighted. "Wonderful! I will admit, Lehnsherr, that I feared you may be losing your touch when you suggested we extend our campaign to the coastal isles. It looks as though this trip will bear fruit, after all! Well done, Captain, well done."

Jaw tight, Lehnsherr offered his thanks in a low murmur. To Essex, he said, stiffly "You may claim your prize."

Essex came toward them, then, and Hank found himself stepping forward, his feet taking him to stand in front of Charles, blocking him from Essex's sight, before his mind had even registered what he was doing.

"No," he said, when Essex drew near. Hank, tall by most standards, the tallest boy in Westshire, had to incline his head to look up at Essex.

Essex's bottomless eyes peered down at him. "You are not the bird I require, child," he intoned. "You don't sing quite as prettily as your friend."

Hank swallowed. "I - I don't care." His entire body was trembling - don't move don't move don't move - "you can't take him. I won't let you."

"Hank..." said the voice behind him, faintly. Hank looked over his shoulder; Charles was staring at him, those blue eyes bright and full of obvious pain, but there was still a clear essence of _Charles_ there.

We must get on that ship. No matter what.

Hank swallowed, closing his eyes.

He kept them closed as he felt Charles move past him, one small hand brushing along Hank's arm, and fought the way his stomach wanted to come up at Essex's cooing ("beautiful, beautiful, such music we will make"). He kept them closed while Lehnsherr read the next name on his list, already moving on as if Charles hadn't just been taken, as if Hank hadn't just let his friend _go_ -

"I want to come too," said Hank, interrupting Lehnsherr mid-speech. He cleared his throat and said louder, with a confidence he didn't feel. "I want to join your ship."

He felt everyone's eyes on him, then: the crew of the _Cerebro,_ the Magistrate, Lehnsherr, and the Westshire crowd. Not once during the entirety of Lehnsherr's trials - not once during any of the trials that Lehnsherr had ever conducted - had anyone volunteered.

Shocked, Lehnsherr took a moment to reply. "Excuse me?"

"I want to go," said Hank. It was getting easier now, with every second he could pretend this wasn't absolutely insane.

"You want to go." It was not a question.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I -" Hank faltered. He swallowed, panic forcing the words out before he could think to recall them; the truth. "Charles is my friend. My family...my _only_ family, now. I don't have anyone else."

The silence after his pronouncement was weighted. Ironically, hysterically, it reminded Hank of when he tried to talk to people other than Charles, when they stared at him with confusion and pity because he was so very awkward, because he used too-big words and fumbled to explain why he was excited about so many things that they found boring. He realized, maybe for the first time, just how much he could not bear it if he were left alone.

Lehnsherr seemed to see it too, because when he spoke his tone was not as harsh as expected, though the words were sharp.

"We are not in the business of charity," he said. "Every member of my crew has earned their place. A sob story and a broken home will not be enough to convince me that you are worth our time."

"Then...allow me to earn it," said Hank. "Allow me the opportunity to earn my spot."

 Lehnsherr paused, considering.

"Alex," he said. "Your name is next on the list."

The blonde boy nodded. "Yeah?"

"What do you think of mister McCoy joining our crew?"

Hank blinked, startled. He hadn't expected Lehnsherr to know his name.

Alex eyed Hank with barely concealed derision. In lieu of reply, he snorted. His dismissal, it would seem, was not a sufficient enough answer for Lehnsherr.

"Alex?"

"He's too skinny," said Alex, examining Hank with the same indifference that other boys had been showing him all his life. "Too tall, too lanky. And he's wearing _glasses._ He hasn't got any fight in him."

It seemed, oddly, to be the answer that Lehnsherr was waiting for.

He turned the full, terrifying weight of his smile on Alex, who seemed to realize his mistake before Lehnsherr even spoke, closing his eyes and groaning, as the spectators ushered Hank forward, stumbling into the courtyard, as Lehnsherr said,

"Why don't you see about that?"

 

\------------------------

_A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence, murder (as found in combat for sport), kidnapping.


	4. Chapter 4

_Alles ist gut_

It was a woman's voice, someone's he had not heard in a very long time. Too long. He'd almost forgotten what she sounded like, how her mouth shaped the words.

_Alles ist gut_

So long...too long.

How could he have not remembered this?

 

~*~

 

Alex came forward off the podium of wrecked carriages and began to pace within the circle of spectators; back and forth, back and forth like an animal caged. Hank stood where he'd been pushed through the crowd, arms at his sides and body trembling with fearful nerves.

"Well?" said Lehnsherr. "You asked for an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of joining my crew. I'm giving it to you."

Hank swallowed. He'd never been in a fight before in his _life_. "I -"

"Come on, bozo," sneered Alex. "Don't be a pussy."

Hank's brow furrowed. "I'm not -"

Alex snorted and rolled his eyes. "Really?" He looked over his shoulder at Lehnsherr. His bearing showed just how unimpressed and underwhelmed he was. "You seriously want me to do this?"

Lehnsherr gave him a hard stare that clearly said, in no uncertain terms: _Yes._

"Psshh, I'm not going to waste my ti-"

"Hey!" shouted Hank. It was out of his mouth before he could think.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was startled to find that he was bristling with anger - _him_ , normally so calm and collected, who rose above everything with a practiced eye of one who was looking forward to bigger, better things. He was the master of letting go of the trivial, of putting every nasty thought in its own place. But this time...

Every dismissive comment, every snarky insult and condescending remark had coalesced into one great mass of irritation that made his limbs shake; his hands curl into fists and his face heat. Every bully, every person who had once been foul or rude to him throughout his entire life, all of them were taking up Alex's foolish, grinning, mocking face.

Alex blinked, taken aback, but quickly recovered.

"What?" he scorned, and his voice didn't sound nearly as sure as it had before, as Hank expected it to. "You really want to do this?" Rather, he seemed suddenly like a deflating balloon: all his hot air escaping in a rush and leaving a man, a _boy_ , just as unsure as Hank himself was.

He advanced, then, hands reaching up to unfasten the top button of his black ship's uniform. Hank watched - wary, as if in slow motion - while Alex undid all its buttons to reveal a strange grey tunic underneath. It appeared as though there was a piece missing in the center of his chest, right over his heart, and the rest hung around it in tatters as if they had been ripped through a dozen times. There were great gashes torn down, and no sign that there had ever been an attempt to stitch them up, with ornate painted black shapes crisscrossing all over.

Runes, Hank realized. Alex's tunic was covered in runes. _But where from?_

It felt as though the answer was on the tip of his tongue. He could recall the book, the very page where he'd seen them before, and if he only had but a moment Hank knew that he could locate that same book again in a heartbeat.

But now was not that time, because Alex was doing something with his hands that made the runes begin to glow red, then a faint pink, and finally a fierce white that one would associate with smith's metal.

Alex looked directly at Hank, and for a brief moment it wildly appeared as though he was _sorry_ for what he was about to do.

"Alright," said Alex. He let go of his hands, slamming fists down to his sides, as a bright flash of light filled the courtyard.

"It's your funeral."

 

~*~

 

The blast hit the courtyard in the center and sent great jagged shards of rock and stone speeding in all directions. The spectators screamed as they pulled back, dodging and retreating from the flying debris, pushing against one another as they tried to make their way back through the crowd. A dozen scattered high pitched wails of anguish told that some of them weren't so lucky.

Hank's ears were ringing and for a moment he wasn't sure where he was. He came back to himself - crouched in a ball, hands over his head - and looked up. His glasses had been thrown off his face and Alex's silhouette was a fuzzy image of grey, black, and glowing runes. There was a metallic flavor in his mouth and his teeth felt as though they were about to shake right out of his skull.

Blinking, he removed his hands from his head and felt a stab of pain from the day-old wound on his arm. His clothes were torn, his shirt ripped and his pants covered in dust. It was thicker than Azazel's sulfur, than Essex's smoke; the gritty dirt was in his mouth, his eyes, his nose.

"See?" said Alex's voice from very far away. "I...old you...e's not gon..."

Lehnsherr's reply was a deep murmur that Hank felt in his bones like a vibration. Everything was a vibration: the harsh slap of feet as people ran, the swishing of their clothes as they shoved one another out of the way; the rocking of the _Cerebro_ where it lay docked, waves lapping against her side; and Alex's footsteps, approaching slowly, one and two, one and two, one and two.

As Alex drew closer, Hank realized, then, that he hadn't moved. He was still crouched, like a wounded creature drawing in on itself to stay alive, and he reached out blindly for the ground to crawl away instinctively when Alex's feet came into view.

The vibrations grew louder, more high-pitched and volatile, and Hank realized it was the _Cerebro's_ crew. Their voices, specifically, that carried on the wind like the call of a dozen bird songs or predators' cries. They were laughing.

"Come on!" yelled someone. "He's pathetic! Finish him!"

"Ai," yelled another, "Go on, boy, blast his 'ead off!"

"Come on," said Alex. He was near whispering, standing above Hank with that same angry scowl on his face. His voice sounded so indecisive, Hank wasn't sure who he was talking to.

The ringing in his ears was getting worse, not better.

"Come on," Alex said again, more firmly. He stepped back as Hank nearly fell face-first into the ground, trying to leverage himself into a standing position. His legs wouldn't cooperate, and his arms were like lead weights.

"J-just do it," he heard himself say, barely a whimper. He sniffed, and realized he was crying. "Just g-get it over with."

He didn't want to die. He knew that much.

But he also didn't want to hurt, the way his entire body was hurting. He didn't want to do lot of things these past few days: like watch the mercenaries come to shore, feeling a knot of dread grow thicker in his stomach; seeing the fear in his father's eyes when they came knocking on their door; the way his mother looked at him as she told him to run, her expression saying that she'd always known something like this was goingto happen. He didn't want to let Charles go. And he didn't want to stand here and be laughed at.

Hank looked down at his feet. His shoes were nearly ripped to shreds; countless hours of meticulous crafting, of selecting leather thick enough to withstand Westchester soil and sewing perfect stitches so they wouldn't break, so there wouldn't even be the _chance_ of someone finding out about his feet. And now there they were - exposed for all to see - misshapen toes protruding from the leather like a runny egg, grotesque and unnaturally large.

Unexpectedly, hysterically, he started laughing.

There was a collective pause. Even the _Cerebro_ crew had stopped their laughter, confused.

"What?" asked Alex, low and dangerous, and oh see how he did not sound happy. It made Hank laugh even harder, great heaving gasps of air as he cackled, cheeks stretched wider than he'd ever done before. He wiped a tear from his eye and his hand came away bloody.

Head wound, then.

Why was it so hilarious?

"Can't you see?" he hiccupped, gesturing down to his feet. "I'm _gifted_."

Alex looked down to Hank's feet. His expression shifted into something unreadable and he turned away. He wouldn't even look at Hank anymore.

"Erik," Alex called, turning to the Captain. He grabbed his jacket from the ground and slug it over his shoulder, not caring that it was balled up and covered in dirt. His tone was defiant. "I'm not fighting this guy," he said. "He's nuts. You do what you want with him." And with that, he stalked out of the courtyard.

Hank remained standing, alone and shaking with the effort to remain upright. They were discussing things up there, he knew, among the Magistrate and his men, only he couldn't hear them.

Eventually, Lehnsherr's voice washed over him.

"We are in agreement, then."

"Yes," said the Magistrate's voice, and then, "yes," from Azazel, followed by the murmured assents from the rest of the crew.

Lehnsherr nodded brusquely. "Mister McCoy."

Hank glanced up. He still couldn't see very clearly.

"We accept."

"Wh-what?"

"We accept your petition to join the _Cerebro._ "

The words were hard to process. Hank shook his head, nearly pitching forward with the effort of it. He mouthed the words he was trying to say, but nothing came out.

Lehnsherr was saying, " - ay not have won your fight, but you have qualities that we admire. Loyalty to your friend, to your home, and a willingness to put yourself in harm's way to do what you think is best. Those ideals are plentiful, I imagine, in your books. But believe me when I tell you that in this world they are very rare.

"You stood your ground," Lehnsherr said, and amended, "as it were," with a quirk of his lips while he eyed the great crater Hank was standing in.

"But," whispered Hank. "I'm...." He licked his lips, searching for a word to encompass all that he was, a failure on top of everything. "Deformed."

"You are _glorious_ ," said Lehnsherr firmly, almost angrily. "I know it seems impossible. I know it makes no sense. But, it is very clear to us, how you are so far beyond these people that you cannot even see it. And _that_ is a greater travesty than anything we have done here today."

"There is the life you have always known," he continued, "and here you are what you've been taught to be. The rest, what is out _there_ ," he gestured to the ocean, "what we can show you, is more than you can ever dream of."

Hank swallowed, Lehsherr's words ringing in his head. They reached into his chest, found his heart and grasped it tight. Remember who this man is, he implored himself. Remember how he seduced and lied his way into Raven's bed, how he caused her to leave Charles all alone.

Though his words...and this was the worst part...they made _sense._ A terrible sense that was just enough rationale for the things he'd seen, what he'd learned. A basic truth: those who survive are the better built, and his world was changing so very fast. It was mostly hope, the kind that made blind fools of men who were older and wiser than he, that stirred him into action.

"Alright," Hank hung his head. He squared his shoulders as best he was able with the exhaustion threatening to overtake him completely. "Alright," he said again, and progressively still, as he tried to remind himself that this was what was necessary to fulfill his part.

 

~*~

 

_Alles ist gut_ said the woman's voice. She was soft and her voice was kind. It wrapped around him like a blanket; puffs of stitched wool rubbed against his skin. The occasional loose thread tickled his arm or his leg, the hair raising there like it was touched by a breeze, letting him know the blanket was made, though imperfectly, with care.

_Alles ist gut_

She was the smell of sugar, the warm melt of fresh bread on his tongue.

She was love.

_Alles ist gut_

 

~*~

 

Charles sat primly on a short stool in Essex'...room. He hesitated, even in his mind, to call it a "study". There was a great big desk that occupied the majority of the small cabin; dark wood and solid as if carved whole out of the thickest part of an ancient tree. Papers and wells of ink in various sizes and colors were strewn across the surface, rulers and circles drawn across several maps of the Arran Kingdom and beyond; it's legs were molded in the shape of some animal's legs that Charles was not familiar with, each sprouting three curved appendages with jagged claws, imbedded in the ship's floor. He imagined that, no matter how much the ship might rock, this desk wasn't going anywhere.

They were onboard the _Cerebro_ following the Westchester Trials, no doubt already given a terrifying new moniker with which to be written about for years to come. An estimated fifty Westchester men were dead, he'd heard the sailors say, and many more left wounded. There were four Westchester people taken aboard the _Cerebro:_ Howlett was one, along with Charles himself. He hoped that Hank was another.

Though the idea appealed to him early, he didn't dare try to use his ability to suss out any other minds onboard the ship. Ever since Essex brought him here, he'd felt as though in a fog. Everything moved so slowly, so sluggishly. He once tried holding his arms up to verify the count of his fingers; watched the hazy trail of his hands as he brought them close to near-touching his face, bent them this way and that, only to find that he'd never actually raised them at all. They lay dormant at his side as if bound.

Charles closed his eyes and fought against the panic that tried to climb once again. Irene would tell him to remain calm. _There is no changing what has happened,_ she'd say in that maddening even-toned voice of hers. _There is no changing what will be. There are only choices to be made, and how to pass the time until they get here._

"Wise woman," Essex' smooth voice floated over him, causing Charles to open his eyes. Essex was seated at the desk, bald head bent over a book with his nose pressed against the pages. The sun had nearly gone completely, which meant that he'd been sitting here for hours, unknowing, in and out of consciousness.

Charles swallowed. "Yes," he agreed, striving to keep his voice calm, civil.

"Your mother."

Charles shook his head.

"Not in the traditional sense, but the one who fed you, clothed you, bathed you since you were small? If not for her, you would have been left alone, food for the wolves, hmm? Most birds won't touch another's offspring, did you know? Yours must have been a pretty egg, for her to risk it so."

Essex drew out another piece of parchment from within the stack and prepared a quill in one of the pots of ink. Its feather was larger than all the others, dark red in color, and seemed to sparkle in the red and orange sunset cast through the porthole windows.

"My sister..." said Charles, somehow compelled to speak even as he struggled against the urge to do so. "She grew sick when I was young. Irene took us in, cared for us. And then my sister..."

Essex clicked his tongue in sympathy. He drew a series of marks on the parchment, the scratching of its sharp tip across the surface the only sound now besides their breathing. It was...oddly...soothing...

"The Blight," said Essex. He touched his quill to his temple. "It leaves marks."

Charles blinked, remembering, trying to find words that did not exist. "She was..." _Wild, carefree, beautiful._

She was standing there, right in front of him. His Raven.

"Raven," whispered Charles.

She looked at him like her namesake bird, head titled to the side in curious regard. Her blue scales appeared almost black in the shadows of the room, her red hair brushing the tops of her shoulders and swaying gently in a breeze that he hadn't even noticed was there.

"How?"

He was seeing her for the first time in so long. Like finding a toy left forgotten since one was small and recalling the way if fit in your hands; it was so much bigger, once upon a time. Things he remembered were the same - how her eyes were large and yellow like a feline's, how she held herself with a grace that was near ethereal, how she smiled at him like it was a secret just between them two -

And yet...different. Her limbs were thinner, tinier than he remembered. She was more a girl than a woman, and it felt as if he was meeting her for the first time all over again, as equals in age.

She didn't speak, but reached out and touched his cheek. The pad of her finger was rough, it dragged against his skin, wonderful and tactile and _present._

But it was wrong. He _knew_ that, with a wrenching pain that clawed him apart from the inside out, he knew it.

She wasn't, _couldn't,_ be here.

"Stop," he whispered, imploring. "Stop it."

And abruptly Raven was gone, just as he knew she would be. Yet it didn't stop his heart from leaping, reaching for her as the spectre of his sister was replaced with Essex's dingy, dark office once more. And the man himself, peering at Charles from behind that red quill as it _scritch-scratch-scritched_ across the parchment.

"Delightful," Essex was saying. "Just delightful. I knew I'd chosen well with you, my little sparrow."

The harsh wooden surface of the chair, the way his hands hung as heavy lead, the oppressive weight of the fog...it was insurmountable. Charles was tired, fatigued; weary down to his bones. He wanted to go home. He wished he'd never left.

He wanted Irene. He wanted _Hank_.

He wanted Max's head on a spike.

He knew that he was being tested. Essex was gifted as well, unlike anyone Charles has ever encountered, and his gift was a dark one. Irene's tales of those whose abilities were brought about through pain echoed in his memory.

A thought, a tiny seedling of observation began to take form. A small little space on the edge of his awareness that he kept to himself. He imagined the idea like a stone, small and smooth, hidden in the palm of his hand. He kept it there, protected against the battering force of an oppressive tide.

He sought out the memory of Irene's voice, and let it drown out everything else once more.

 

~*~

 

The mouse was staring at her again, a short little nose with whiskers that were longer than you'd expect on a creature so small. They tickled her finger when she reached out to touch, expecting at any moment for it to recoil, to run away or even to bite.

But it just sat there, unmoving, and she realized - even as her finger kept pressing forward, insistently - that this time, its eyes were cloudy white.

 

~*~

 

Facing Anna Marie was a young man, likely her age or just a bit older, who was kneeling over a small pot set into a fireplace. They were in a small room, wooden walls all around, with three small cots laid near-touching end to end and hardly any room besides. The sounds from beyond the walls - men with their grating and boisterous laughter - and the gentle swaying of the floor told that they were on a ship. The _Cerebro_ , likely, that has just set sail from Westchestire.

The man turned, noticing she was awake. He abandoned the fire and came to her side.

"My name is Armando," he said. His skin was a rich brown like wet earth, his face calm as they regarded her. His entire torso was exposed, displaying a lean and muscled figure, the only hint of modesty a cloth wrapped about his hips. Across his face were white dots that stood out against the bridge of his nose.

He lifted her neck with one hand - and only then did she realize how weak she was, how she could barely move from where she'd been laid - and brought a wooden bowl to her lips with the other.

"Drink," he told her gently. "You'll need it."

She took a sip and nearly spit it right back out, coughing, "W-what is that?"

"A tonic," Armando said. "Mostly oil and fat, though there is some citrus peel. I know it's not the greatest, but you should drink it."

She hesitated, because the last thing she felt she should do was accept anything from a stranger. But...she was so very hungry, and Armando was actually...pleasant. He had a kindness behind his eyes; nothing like Emma's cold calculating blue or the Magistrate's disdain; Azazel's full of amusement but inherently dangerous, and that man in the woods...

She shuddered.

"Come on," Armando prompted her softly, no doubt thinking her sudden fear due to his offer.

She accepted the bowl and drank it down in one large gulp. As promised, it was not pleasant.

As she was coughing what felt like the entirety of her stomach through her throat, the door to the cabin opened and a young woman stepped in. Like Armando she was of darker skin; her black hair was long and hung around her shoulders in plaits and her eyes, a vibrant amber, were rimmed with khol. Along the top of one arm she sported a similar marking to those on Armando's face: white dots that ran around three times as a band. She wore a slight tunic that promised to display...well, _everything_...if she shifted but the wrong way.

"She awake?" asked the newcomer.

Armando nodded. He took back the bowl and went to refill it from the burning pot. Surprisingly, though it had only been a few minutes, Anna Marie felt stronger.

"I'm Angel," said the woman. "You're the new girl, huh?"

"The...what?"

"We haven't gotten there yet, Angel," said Armando. "She just woke up."

Angel arched an eyebrow and went to sit on one of the beds. Anna Marie averted her eyes as Angel's tunic ran up her legs, close to bunching around her hips. One of the straps on her shoulder fell as she twisted round to reach for something behind a pillow, revealing the dark shapes tattooed wings across her back. "You better get on with it then," she said. "We're on the move, and come sundown we're gonna be busy."

Nobody had expressly said anything, but she was no fool. Anna Marie had a feeling, a terrible foreshadowing from the moment Emma looked at her and declared she _could be of some use after all._ Like she was a bit of property, assessed to be priced, ready to be sold. And there was only one thing a girl of her age and looks was good for selling, on the sea.

She swallowed against the rising bile in her throat, chasing after the fatty potion that was suddenly very unwieldy in her stomach.

"Hey," Armando gently touched her knee. "It's okay."

Anna Marie nodded, closing her eyes against tears.

"Shit," said Angel, and she did sound contrite. "I didn't mean to -"

Anna Marie shook her head, cutting her off. She didn't _blame_ her - either of them - for this. She didn't blame anyone, really. Except Emma, maybe, for singling her out, and that coward who started a drunken brawl in her father's tavern. And Howlett, that animal, who told her to run and drove her right into this mess.

_Oh father_ , she thought. Was he even still alive?

"Chances are Emma's gonna want to wait before she sends her out," Armando said. "Azazel dropped her off a few hours ago and said Emma would be by to get her. She hasn't been marked yet."

She twitched. "Marked?"

"Yeah, see..." Armando pointed to the dots across his face. "Nothing terrible, just a little bit of white ink somewhere where everyone can see. You work for the White Queen, she wants people to know it. Think of it like a brand."

"For cattle?" her mouth twisted.

"For _employees_ ," stressed Angel. "We may answer to Emma at the end of the day but we pick our own clients, our own services. We have the right to refuse anyone, and if they try to push us into doing something we don't want to do, well..." she grimaced. "You've already met Azazel."

"That rarely ever happens though," Armando insisted. "She may not look it, but Emma can hold her own. And the Captain is pretty good about keeping the crew in line, but if someone _does_ get out of hand..."

Angel shuddered, nodding. "Azazel's one thing, but Lehnsherr..."

Whatever methods the Captain had used to punish someone on a previous occasion must have been quite memorable, if the looks on their faces was anything to go by.

"It's not ideal," said Armando sympathetically. "But it could be worse. Trust me, you'll get used to it."

And that, Anna Marie thought sadly, was the probably the best and worst thing about this entire situation.

She longed for a distraction, anything to change the subject.

"How did you come to be here?" she asked, watching as Angel began the process of rubbing her legs with a rough stone, each pass over her skin leaving white trails of dust that were brushed off by her fingers.

"We're tributes," explained Armando. "Our villages gave us to the Magistrate as a gesture of goodwill during the negotiations with the Arran Kingdom."

"You're...Genoshan?"

Angel scoffed as Armando smiled softly. "That is an Arran word, but yes, in a way. Where I am from is called Kyanna, and Angel is from Marrasna. They are far away from Westshire. I've been here almost a year and Angel for about half that long."

"Oh..."

So they were like her, then; taken from their homes, made to...do things...they didn't want to. And unlike her, who was taken against her will, they were _given_ away by their families, plucked from far-flung corners of the Kingdom and set to sail on the Magistrate's personal warship. She wasn't sure which was worse, in that moment. She didn't know what to say, then. She felt as though she should say something, some acknowledgment of their shared experience.

But as she looked at them - really _looked_ at them - at the way they prepared themselves for this thing that she so feared with unhurried movements, with an ease that spoke of untold practice, she became aware that though they had ended up in the same place, their path's were far from the same in getting there.

Emma would be coming for her soon. Until then, she vowed to try and rest, to collect her bearings.

Who would know when she'd have the chance again.


	5. Chapter 5

_The Willing Conscript_

_(Erik/Charles only)_

 

~*~

 

It was a black night on the sea. The deck of the _Cerebro_ was nothing but shadows, sharp corners and trick holes that one might stumble into were they not careful. Charles could hear laughing from the below decks where he knew there was activity going on: the men and women of the ship's crew drinking and gambling, playing cards and throwing dice, and there was even the sweet sound of a lilting violin, its rich notes wafting from beneath the wooden floor like tendrils of smoke. Their intoxication brushed along his mind like a haze, and he was thankful for his experience in keeping out the thoughts of drunkards. Even on a ship as large as this - and he had never seen anything as big before, like a floating island - so many strange minds reached out to him, calling for to him to take just one peek inside.

He was with Essex, standing before the wrought iron door to the Captain's office, dressed in a dark robe similar to the one that Essex wore. There hadn't been any garments among Essex's things that were undersized enough to fit him, so he had been given one that belonged to a past companion, a man who must have been quite thin. Still, the sleeves hung down to his fingertips and he was forced to let the back trail along like a bridal train, accumulating dirt and mud from the ship's dirty floorboards. More than one crewman had stepped on it in passing, probably on purpose, and muttered something scathing as though it was _his_ fault they'd tripped over him. It had taken all of Charles' willpower, which had taken on the habit of becoming something like Irene's teasing voice in the back of his mind, not to react.

Oh, she would be relentless if she knew, he thought. She would never let him forget it, how he actually seemed to _miss_ her nagging.

But...there would be none of that in his future. Irene was gone.

He kept his thoughts like rocks on the banks of a river: smooth and small so that the water of Essex's fog might pass over them and not encounter any snags, any reason to go digging deeper. So Charles committed himself to playing the role of a confused, fearful child. And, at times, it was far truer than others.

"What are we doing here?" he whispered, eyeing the Captain's quarters with trepidation. It felt like a situation where one should be as silent as possible.

Essex raised one bony hand and knocked on the door. It rang an oddly hollow sound for something that appeared so solid; a mixture of several kinds of metal as far as he could tell, with flowers that were too severe to be beautiful, some breeds he knew from Westshire and some that appeared exotic. Their silver and copper petals were surrounded by vines that literally sprung from the surface, holding an inch or two away suspended in the air. On each of these floating stems were rows upon rows of jagged thorns. Charles reached out, curiously, to touch one. He withdrew his finger with a hiss of pain.

"Shh..." said Essex, equally quiet. Charles noted how he hadn't seemed bothered by the thorns at all. "Your curiosity will be sated in time, little one."

It was a few moments before the door was answered. Charles expected it to be by Lehnsherr himself, in all his cold imperious glory. But rather it was by Azazel, who eyed them both with an arched brow and a clear demand as to why they were walking the ship at this time of night, let alone standing _here_ , so far from the crew deck.

" _Da?_ " he prompted. "What do you want?"

Charles had to scramble backwards as Essex executed a perfect bow, folding his spine parallel to the ship's floor. The back of  his neck was entirely exposed as his robe slid down the tops of his shoulders, the nodes in his neck standing out like bleached animal bones. Charles stood there awkwardly, unsure if he should follow suit.

"I was dreaming, sir, and was awoken with the strangest of feelings," intoned Essex, still facing the floor. "A force, most foul, came upon me as I travelled through the woods. It blocked the trail that was laid clearly before me and sent me reeling, leading me to a place of darkness from which I could not escape. I grew fearful, and thankfully awoke before I became trapped in the shadow lands."

The shadow lands, Charles had learned, was the place where Essex claimed to have kept his smoke; kept all his tricks for illusion and mind touch. He had no idea if it really existed or not.

"I recalled then, sir, that my Captain had recently expressed a similar feeling of misdirection, of being adrift under the orders of the Magistrate for his mission. I felt compelled to present myself before him and offer any assistance I may afford."

That was a lie. Essex had not been asleep. Charles _had_ been, and was roughly awoken and told to make himself presentable for a walk around the ship. Rather Essex sat at his desk and wrote, the same as he always did. Charles couldn't recall an occasion where he'd actually seen Essex sleep.

"Who is it?" came Lehnsherr's voice from beyond the door.

"The sorcerer," said Azazel, his eyes never leaving Essex. "He has come to offer his...counsel." That scarred visage settled on Charles, who swallowed. "He brought his _súchka._ "

There was a pause, before Lehnsherr's voice said, "Let them in."

Inside Lehnsherr's chambers was surprisingly...bright.

What appeared to be a dozen candles were strewn about the cabin, twice the size of any crewman's quarters, resting in sconces that didn't appear to have handles. Many of them were melted over, their wax sticking to the assorted furniture: a mahogany table, some chairs and a small trunk with a simple padlock; all very utilitarian, especially when compared to the lavishness of Essex's own office. The walls were bare except for a lone hanging bookcase with a single row of leather-bound volumes stuffed end to end, their spines displaying titles in an assortment of languages that Charles did not recognize. It was clear that, prior to their interruption, Azazel and Lehnsherr had been gathered at the center table where several dripping candles illuminated an old map.

"Yes," said Lehnsherr. He stood on the opposite end of the table, arms at his sides. His position placed Essex - and by extension, Charles - at the farthest corner of the room, in the circle of most light. The Captain himself was nearly all in shadow and Azazel was nowhere to be seen. Since Charles had not heard the tell-tale _crack_ that he'd come to associate with his ability to appear and disappear at will, he assumed he was hiding in deeper shadow, ready to strike should any one of them so much as twitch in the wrong direction.

Charles, growing more and more nervous, feeling his palms begin to sweat, resisted the urge to wipe them on his robe.

"Captain," said Essex, though he did not bow this time. "It is my understanding that we aim to approach the Argentum within a week's time."

The Argentum, an island in the Kingdom's north, home to giants and all manner of fierce creatures as Charles' books had always told. He had assumed them to be just stories for children, but perhaps...

"Who told you that?" came Azazel's voice from their left. "Have you been spying on us, sorcerer". Charles jumped - he couldn't help it - that rough voice, accented and gravelly, and the _swish swish swish_ of that tail, its sharp tip dragging along the wall.

"Not spying, sir. Merely observing."

"And what is it you have observed, then?" This from Lehnsherr, who drew back the chair before him and sat down, folding his fingers beneath his chin. He appeared unconcerned, as though he was merely humoring Essex with allowing him explanation.

"I took a trip down to the hold last evening," said Essex. "Even with our liberations from Westshire, there is not enough supplies necessary for all the members of the crew to survive the long voyage to the Argentum. The first thought that came to mind was that perhaps you plan to make a stop somewhere along the way, though that would be unlikely given the only lands between our ship and the island are Genoshan-held, not friendly to our Magistrate or his cause. A second thought, one I find most...intriguing, is that perhaps you don't intend for everyone to make it there alive.

"The question becomes, then, what event, what fortune so foul may befall us in the middle of an ocean, that would reduce our numbers thus?"

There were many things that could do that, thought Charles. Disease, for one, though the Cerebro had been found surprisingly free from illness, all its crewmen regularly fed and watered with the appropriate sustenance. And, as there were more gifted aboard the ship than he'd originally assumed, there were healers available to tend to those who did fall sick.

Then there were scuffles, the kind of which Charles had heard men discussing when they visited the Red Hen or shore leave: arguments over the usual things, women, cards, money. Though these things, too, did not appear to be a problem onboard the _Cerebro_. The crew participated in games of chance, yes, but there was a strict limit on the amount of money a single crewman could wager and a no-violence rule that any man would be loathe to break, given the consequences were a visit with the Magistrate's enforcers, Captain Lehnsherr and Azazel among them. The problem of sex was solved by Emma Frost - the White Queen, they called her - whose small conclave of escorts provided that sort of entertainment under very clear terms.

The Magistrate himself was rarely seen outside of the occasional meeting with his officers, leaving Captain Lehnsherr to run the ship as he saw fit. All in all, Charles realized, given the size of the ship and crew, the _Cerebro_ was rather well equipped to deal with any problem they may encounter.

A lack of food though...

Lehnsherr hummed, a noncommittal sound, and said to Azazel conversationally, "Please inform Miss Pryde that she needs to add an additional watch to the hold. We don't want any rats to get into our provisions, scarce as they are."

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw Essex's carefully constructed expression crumple at that, just a bit. He seemed...ridiculously fascinated with the Captain. Not in the same way that Charles himself was - longing to see the man thrown overboard and devoured by sharks - but in a way that could almost be described as academic.

Essex would often mumble to himself when he was writing, bits and pieces about things that Charles knew and things he didn't; people, places and events that he'd heard of through story or song, and occasionally smattered among them were mentions of Magneto. The great Magneto; Magneto the Terrible; Lord of Metal. It didn't take long for Charles to realize, with what little interaction he had with the crew, that this figure from the old scribes' tales was his very own Max, their precious Captain. He found this out, in fact, with very little fanfare about the whole thing. Nobody seemed to care that much about it.

Except Essex.

"I thank you, Mister Essex, for your concern, but I do not believe I have a problem at the moment that requires your assistance. Should I find myself in need of someone with your...particular skills...I will of course let you know."

A clear dismissal. Charles almost wanted to sag with the physical relief of it. It was so unnerving to be here in Lehnsherr's territory, under his domain, with the knowledge that he had to hold himself still and remain calm until he'd worked out a plan. Pending that...

Until the moment he held a knife to the bastard's throat, Charles loathed being in the same _room_ as Lehnsherr.

For in his presence he could examine the man's face; could imagine how he looked fifteen years younger when Raven had met him; those sharp cheekbones and angular jaw softened with youth, perhaps, cheeks a bit fuller and hair longer. It was different now that his imaginings of those scenarios, the countless hours he'd spent on them throughout his youth, had a face to fit the once-hazy blankness, the shroud of mystery, that had always been "Max".

"Leave us," said Lehnsherr.

Charles blinked, torn out of his thoughts. Should he...bow? What was the proper way to address a ship's Captain? It wouldn't do now to let his hostility for the man show through.

He stepped towards the door.

"Not you," that harsh voice stopped him in his tracks.

Lehnsherr's eyes were hard, set up on Essex, who shrank back like a wraith. Clearly, whatever scheme Essex has been hoping to perpetrate here had failed, and he'd only served to degrade himself further in the Captain's graces.

Essex bowed, a great sweeping gesture that set the flames in the candles flickering dangerously. He became part of the shadows, then, a vision of black smoke, and before he disappeared Charles swore he heard Essex's voice in his mind, slithering like a snake over all those carefully placed stones.

_Have caution. He knows who you are._

The blood froze in Charles' veins.

Lehnsherr was watching him, and abruptly that steely gaze took on an entirely new cast.

Charles swallowed, willing himself - begging himself - to be calm.

No matter, he thought. It isn't as if Lehnsherr wouldn't have found out eventually. And really, what was there for him to know? That his name was Charles Xavier, that his sister was Raven who died? That he was gifted, which mattered less on this ship than it did in Westshire where the people were even more disinterested than they were onboard the _Cerebro_? Other than the promise he'd made to her, there was not a single one of these things that he would hesitate to lay bare before any man.

It brought him a comfort, if but a small one.

"Have you eaten?" asked Lehnsherr.

"No."

"No, _sir._ "

Charles grit his teeth. "No, sir." Even now, after his newfound vow of patience, it appeared Lehnsherr was determined to get a rise out of him.

"Azazel, please fetch us some food from the mess. The crew should be about finished with their after-supper festivities."

Charles had almost forgotten Azazel was still there, so quiet he was, and started badly when he disappeared with a _crack._ He reappeared a moment later, arms laden with two trays full of the day's rations: a small bowl of broth with root vegetables, of which carrots and onions were the only that Charles could readily identify, a loaf of coarse bread and a single jug of wine. He placed these items at the table, appearing bizarrely like some servant in a rich man's house. Other than his striking red skin and fierce features, of course, and the fitted black he wore with the ready knives.

"Thank you, Azazel," murmured Lehnsherr. "That will be all."

Azazel bowed, not so low as Essex, and disappeared, leaving Lehnsherr and Charles alone.

Charles stood at the head of the table, hands hanging awkward at his sides. Lehnsherr had wasted no time, digging in to the meal with gusto. He let one brow arch, eyeing Charles. "You can sit."

Charles elected to take the seat directly before him, at the opposite end of the table, though this meant that he had to stretch his arms to their near fingertips to reach the other plate. Lehnsherr observed him silently, his regard like a physical, heavy thing on Charles' shoulders. He felt his face heating and cursed his small figure. He'd never really minded being small - rather that than a veritable giant like Hank - though now he wished for a bit more muscle, particularly when his eyes fell upon the way Lehnsherr's uniform clung to his shoulders and biceps.

Lehnsherr waited until he'd brought the spoon to this lips to ask him,

"How old are you?" As if he did not already know.

"Seventeen." A pause, then he added, " _sir_."

Surely Charles was imagining the ghost of a smirk on Lehnsherr's lips.

"That is not so young. There are boys and girls on this ship who are far younger."

It made him sick, the food even more unappetizing, when Charles thought about it. "You kidnap _children_?" he spat, aware the venom with his he spoke was both improper and unwise.

To his...surprise, repulsion, _horror_...Lehnsherr laughed.

It was a short thing, like a clap of thunder on a sunny day. One swore they heard it, but could never be sure when the sky overhead remained its perpetual unchanging blue.

"Forgive me. It is...odd to be faced with someone who knows so little of the world, yet is so convinced they understand its workings."

"I think that no matter what, we can all agree that abducting children is a bad thing."

"That we can."

The silence stretched between them, thick and full of an energy like a chamber of gas; no air to breath: just poisonous, noxious fumes. There need only be a spark, a single flame to ignite the tension and Charles had no doubt that he would give in, would forsake everything to let this man know just _how_ he felt about it all.

"Have you heard the name the give it now?" the Captain asked eventually. "The Trials in your Westshire?"

"No."

Lehnsherr took a sip of his wine, tongue peeking out to chase the drops on his bottom lip. "The Tempest of the Shore. Personally, I find it rather fitting. The calmers of the sea, taken to task by a storm, brought upon them by the horrid Magistrate and his evil horde. The ones who invent these names are quite poetic."

"How can you be so cavalier?" Charles had given up all pretense of civility, it seemed. His hand was hot where it gripped his spoon, all thoughts of eating anything so far away they could no longer be seen. He longed to lash out with it, to drive the offending utensil deep into Lehnsherr's skin until he met the bone, and simultaneously to keep it pressed in his palm, tight and satisfyingly painful.

Oh, he would _relish_ when this man came to an end.

"I assure you, there is nothing that concerns me more than ensuring the Kingdom's safety."

"You say that in one breath and with the next condemn fifty men to die," scoffed Charles. "For sport? To satisfy the barbaric appetites of your crew? What purpose could such violence possibly serve."

"The Trials are necessary," Lehnsherr said, and his gaze was the most serious that Charles had ever seen. He had the feeling, in that moment, that he was seeing a glimpse - a small crack - of the man that lay beneath the face of Captain Lehnsherr. A taste of the Max of old, perhaps, that had won over Raven.

"Despite what many think, I do not enjoy the Trials. I do not enjoy combat for sport. It's not something I would condone if the alternative were any less horrendous."

"An alternative..." said Charles. "You pit man against man, child against adult. You tell them that it is their sovereign right, their very duty as citizens of the Kingdom to sacrifice their goods and possibly their lives for the benefit of a cause that most of them do not even believe in. You turn them against one another, against themselves, and if they survive you condemn them to a lifetime with the knowledge that they did something so horrendous - that they debased themselves so thoroughly, so irreparably - that they will never be the same again."

His very being here on this ship, though an integral part of his overall scheme, spoke of a larger, more troubling practice of barbarism. It wasn't just Lehnsherr who was to blame but the Kingdom as a whole for what happened in Westshire. Captain Lehnsherr was a madman, a barbaric dog, but he was on the Magistrate's leash.

Lehnsherr was quiet for a long moment. His gaze, it seemed, had taken on a faraway cast. Surprisingly, Charles noted, he actually appeared to be considering the merit of Charles' words.

Lehnsherr reached for the jug of wine, not to fill his cup, but to simply stare inside; as if captivated by the way the candlelight shone on its depths, a red so dark it was nearly black. A piece of his hair, glittering reddish-brown, was threatening to escape its place along the crease of his forehead, where the lines cast a shadow that spoke, abruptly, of the harshness of a life at sea.

"The Tempest of the Shore will be spoken of for years to come," he said. "When you are grown, older than either of us are now, you will hear whispers of it in a tavern among men whose tongues are loose with drink and mirth, who recount the stories of old and spin them in rhymes set to song. You will hear it in places you least expect: the whore you purchase for a night of pleasure, the child who delivers the morning news on the street corner; women in the shops will breathe word of it between talk of market and their daughters' suitors. It will catch your ear like a whisper on the wind and you will stop, dead in your tracks, and turn your head. Your heart will skip, your mind will race. And each of these times, you will think: It is not as they say it was."

Looking to Charles, who was held rapt, Lehnsherr asked, "Have you heard of the Traitor's Siege? At Grisaille, or if your books are ancient enough, Eusynia?" 

Charles nodded.

"And what have you heard?" he sighed, resigned, as if he expected it to be so, and inclined his head back so the crown rested on his chair, the tendons in his neck stretched taught and pale.

"That..." Charles licked his lips, mind racing back to trace the letters on an old book's page, "When the Magistrate first sought to unify the Kingdom as a whole under the rule of Arran, he visited all the nation-states from north to south, east to west. One of these states, Eusynia, was ruled by a king who was infamous for his temper. He was cruel, they say, and often punished his subjects harshly - those of the court and those outside - at even the slightest hint of condescension. This king...I...forget what his name was, now...invited the Magistrate to come meet with him in his palace, in the desert of Eusynia..."

 

~*~

 

_The dust clouds gathered strong that day, dispelled by the night to lead away the moon. The winds appeared from the east and gave them flight, more quickly than expected, and before the Arran soldiers knew it they were outside the gates of Eusynia - the Blood of the Ironborn - nestled in the basin between jagged rocks and the city's towering walls, made from the same thick stone as any you could find underfoot. The entire city appeared out of nowhere, it seemed: as though it had sprung from the very sand itself._

_The Magistrate for nearly five decades, Adam Stryker, had just passed, leaving his only son to follow the path he set forth: a military campaign in the continent's most remote desert, where the tribes of ancient Genosha had lived, unfettered, for centuries. The goals of this mission were simple: convince these separate tribes to join as one under the Arran flag, or be considered an outsider and therefore not privy to the Kingdom's resources and protection._

_On the outskirts of Eusynia the Arran troops sat for five days and five nights while the Magistrate met with the Eusynian king - a man named Rhomen - inside the walls. Among these men was the Magistrate's most trusted advisor, Jakob, who would routinely walk along the camp's perimeter with his tell-tale sword in hand. It was famous, that sword, because it was made of orichalcum, found only in the lairs of gryphons. Gryphons, it was said, were not so easily swayed to give up their precious prizes. A man who earned such a gift must have done something quite remarkable._

_There was a tower behind the walls standing so tall that one could see endlessly in all directions, from where the ground and sky blurred into one bright line of yellow to where the distant Reigach mountain ranges spewed forth the earth's contents in thick, hot waves of lava. One day the king's daughter, the princess Edie, found her way up the tower's steps. She spied below her the Magistrate's men and her eyes fixed on the silhouette of Jakob._

_Jakob was neither a small man nor a giant; his bearing not overly striking nor plain. He was not dramatically good looking, was not a master of combat or slayer of monsters. He was of an age where men find themselves wanting: a wife, a child, a home, once he had helped secure peace for his beloved Kingdom. He had a lifetime of loyal service as well as honesty and courage, the kind of which the Magistrate was loathe to lose in such a perilous time._

_Edie watched for days as Jakob made his way through the camp, as he assisted his fellow soldiers in surviving the harsh desert conditions to which none of them were accustomed. Some days, when she was feeling particularly brave, she would spy him as he conversed with the Magistrate following the meetings with her father. She would hear them, then, as they talked of deals to be made with other states, should the Eusynians not fall in line._

_After one such meeting, she went to her father in his throne room, to warn him of the manner in which the Magistrate intended to bargain for her city's keys, and found before her a scene which she did not expect: Jakob, presenting to the king the official conscription papers of the Arran seal and her father with a quill in hand, whispering between them words of surrender and subjugation._

_Edie grew enraged. Eusynia was her city,_ their _city, and it became clear to her then what she had to do to protect it, if her father was not able to._

 

~*~

 

"She killed them," said Charles. "Jakob and her father."

 

~*~

 

_To this day it is not clear how she managed it, being only a single woman in the presence of two men, but the facts were remitted as thus by the one who found them:_

_The king Rhomen, old and frail, drooping over in his throne with a gash across his neck, and Jakob, crumpled on the floor just in front, his arm outstretched as if he'd tried to stop Rhomen's attacker. Edie was left standing, blood on her clothes and in her hair, eyes wild and mad, Jakob's famous sword in hand. I am queen now, she said, and I vow to never let the Magistrate or any Arran dog set foot inside Eusynia's walls again._

 

~*~

 

"But an agreement had already been made, the ink still wet upon the parchment. The Magistrate was now faced with a decision: what to do when a state, newly pledged to you, tries to revolt."

Stryker was aware that all eyes were upon him, then. He must have known. How difficult, Charles thought, could that have been: to discern that your actions in Eusynia would be a catalyst, a standard for the entirety of your campaign. How would the other nations treat you, if you allowed the usurper to live?

So he condemned them all - every last one - inside the walls and out. By the end of that fifth day there was not a single Eusynian still living.

A massacre. A lesson to Westshire and all others, not to defy the Kingdom's rule.

Lehnsherr hummed. "As they tell it."

"You're saying that's not how it was?"

"Does it matter?"

 

~*~

 

Charles realized, abruptly, that he had been sitting here alone with Lehnsherr, lost in the words of an old tale, with his spoon still held suspended between his fingers. Lehnsherr's mind was as unreadable to him now as before, and he hadn't opened his eyes for the entirety of Charles' recounting. In fact...

Charles noticed - and it seeped into him like a hot warmth, suffused itself through his very bones - Lehnsherr was defenseless, his neck bared.

Any illusion, however small, was dispelled a moment later when Lehnsherr came back to himself. He ran a hand over his face, skin catching on the rough stubble of his beard, appearing so very worn and tired.

"And so you see, then, how things can be?" he said. Those grey eyes were dull but still they caught the light of candles, reflecting in them like the remnants of a fire, once-held- within. "Were the Trials not available to us, what is to stop another Eusynia, another Plaescia, another Phaenea? The list is long and bloody that tells of those who defied our will.

The scent of blood will drive a beast to hunt, endlessly, to satisfy its craving. Give it but a piece of what it seeks, and perhaps it will not swallow you whole."

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end of the chapter for warnings if interested

_Part One: Mere Human Hands_

 

The _Cerebro's_ hold was located underneath the quarterdeck, the only entrance both in and out being a single narrow staircase tucked in the farthest corner of a row of small rooms, all serving as emergency chambers for the Westshire recruits brought aboard from the Trials. Hank was given a room no bigger than the pantry closet in his house back home, just large enough to fit a cot and a two-row bookshelf made of unsturdy pine, swelled with age and moisture. The smell of the room, ocean-scent infused in the wood and turning it a muted green, reminded him of that little closet in his parent's house, a large crate stuffed with onions and potatoes from their garden, root vegetables sprouting little buds of their own.

For his time aboard the _Cerebro_ , Hank had avoided any thought of his parents. He had _tried_ , in any case, but found that while he was somewhat successful at doing so in the daytime - steady work and busy hands served to keep his mind active and fresh - at night he couldn't stop the memories from creeping in. He lay awake most evenings, curled with his knees to his chest because his legs were too long to fit comfortably on the cot, and remembered, over and over, the day the Arran soldiers came to their home.

He took off his glasses and held them in hand, turning them over and examining the cracks left when he'd fallen during the Trials. His leg, tucked underneath him, throbbed painfully and he shifted. The gash in his side was nearly gone, a faint pink mark the only evidence of the trauma he'd endured. Eris, the gifted healer who'd tended him when he was brought aboard, had told him it would take weeks for him to fully recover. Much better, she'd said, than if it had been left tended my mere human hands.

Mere human hands...the words rang in his mind. Were his hands - and he held them up, fingers splayed wide - were these hands not human as well?

There was a clear divide, it seemed, between the gifted and non-gifted aboard the _Cerebro_ , an animosity that had deep roots far beyond the Magistrate's recruitment of the former for coin. Some sailors didn't care one way or another that they served with a gifted crew, whether they be as ordinary-looking as Hank or as exotic as Azazel, while some were very vocal in their opposition, refusing to even be in the same room as a gifted crew member. It was Hank's luck that word of his conscription had spread by the time he was given his room and those who were adverse to his presence had all but cleared out. It still didn't stop the occasional nasty comment or rude gesture, but Hank was so accustomed to that sort of behavior it was almost laughable.

To look at him now, he thought; the outcast given preference in a crew of pirates. The mask of one monster exchanged for another. And he had yet to garner the nerve to ask for some thread so he could mend his shoes.

There was a knock on his door and Hank looked up. He hastily put his glasses back on and stood up, brushing off his clothes - the same breeches and shirt he wore in Westshire, only much dirtier now - and said, "Come in."

The door opened and Alex stepped inside. He took in Hank's room with a perfectly blank face, though Hank saw how his eyes darted all over, taking in everything so quickly that one may not have noticed had they not been paying attention. Hank fought to urge to fidget as he was no doubt being perused in the same way.

Alex was dressed in a different pair of slacks than when Hank last saw him, his sandy blonde hair a messy tumble on his head and his arms covered in small cuts and bruises, red rashes left from rope burn and wood scrape - the life of a sailor, as Hank's own wounds could attest. He still wore the same shirt, however: the one with the painted runes.

It came to Hank later, when he was staring at the ceiling in his room and fighting sleep, that the runes were from the Emerald Isle, once known as Caerre; a great state, famous throughout the Kingdom for its manufacturing and inventions, particularly those of engineering and farming. Of course, as was the way with several of the Kingdom's large cities, it was also famous for its slavery. A historian's account of Caerre's ancient peoples, their ruins now covered with the new growth of civilization, but still fresh, apparently. Hank, ever the academic, itched to ask Alex what the significance of these runes were.

Itchy, but not stupid.

"The Captain wants us to check the hold," said Alex. 

"Okay."

He followed Alex out into the hall that was fairly empty save for a few late-morning stragglers, still recovering from a rowdy night. They came to the door of the hold and Alex withdrew a key from his pocket. He slipped it in the lock, only for it to swing open without assistance.

"What the..." Alex frowned, and Hank noticed the way the door was hanging limply by its hinges, as though it had been wrenched open by force and then simply shut, splinters of wood where it met the doorframe.

Alex cursed and said roughly, "Come on." Hank followed him down the steps, made of the same sturdy lumber as the rest of the crew deck and covered in a fine sheen of moisture that Hank felt seep through the holes in his shoes. By their own accord, it seemed, his toes gripped the surface tighter.

They came to bottom of the staircase and were met with complete blackness. Hank squinted, trying to make out anything; a thick fog, what little light there was catching on dust floating through the air, and fuzzy shapes that he guessed were crates and barrels stacked all over. It smelled like steam and mold and, oddly, wet dog.

"What's going on?" he asked.

He could just barely see Alex shrug. "Dunno. That creep Essex hinted there might be some stuff missing and it made Erik nervous. But Essex is insane, so you can never be sure if what he's telling you is true or just some... _vision_ he's had."

Erik...the Captain. Charles' "Max".

"I thought his name was Max," said Hank. "Howlett, uh, Logan, called him that when he came to the Red Hen."

"Guess it was, maybe once. Don't matter now though. There's lots of people who have a different name than the one they were born with." As he couldn't see Alex's face, there was no telling if Hank was imagining the weighted implications to these words, of a history there. "Besides, he's got one name that matters, and that's the one people are most afraid of."

Magneto. Right.

Hank wondered if _he_ would ever find himself in such a state where he assumed a name that was not his own for...well, various reasons. He couldn't imagine it. But, he thought, if he ever were did, it would have to have been for something terrible.

Hank cleared his throat. "So, uh, what are we looking for?"

"Anything out of place," was all Alex said. Of course, that was easier said than done, since Hank couldn't exactly _see_ what was in the hold at the moment and had no idea what was there to begin with. He'd never been on a ship; he had no clue what was supposed to be in the hold other than food and supplies, and beyond that was pure speculation based on the scribes' accounts of merchant ships: sacks of wheat and cotton, jars of spices and great reams of silk that reflected like hidden jewels.

One thing that he knew definitely wasn't supposed to be there, however, was the massive hand that reached out and grabbed him.

"Alex!"

He was held, back to chest, against a person who was head-to-shoulders smaller than himself but three times as strong. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank caught a flash of gleaming white and couldn't help but shiver at the voice - guttural and darkly mocking - that slid down his spine.

"What're you doin' down here, boy?" sneered Creed.

"Victor!" Alex came running towards them. Hank could make out his scowl by the faint glow the runes on his tunic had taken, lit from his chest underneath.

Creed chuckled, one hand coming up to cross over Hank's sternum to hold him still. He ran one sharp nail over Hank's shirt, echoing a raspy sound. "Lehnsherr sends his pup to scavenge, does he? Silly Lehnsherr."

"The _Captain_ ," said Alex, advancing forward - never mind that he was shorter than both Hank and Creed - "sent us down here to see why things are going missing. I guess we just figured it out."

Creed snorted. "I guess you did."

Abruptly, Hank was pushed forward, arms outstretched in an effort to stop his fall. He narrowly missed colliding with Alex, who moved out of the way just in time, then moved himself to stand, subtly, in front of Hank.

Hank was shaking, adrenaline making his nerves twitch like a hive of bees. Alex, though, appeared fearless - or just insane, Hank's mind supplied - to be standing there so casual as Creed reached into his pocket and withdrew a cigar and match. He lit it and threw the match down to crush it beneath his boot, smoke and fire mingling with the scent of rot and wetness. The cigar was familiar, and it took him a moment to place where he had seen, and smelled, it before.

Howlett. He smoked them all the time, back in Westshire.

"You pups get out of here," Creed said. In the match's flame, he looked just and mean and even more vicious than he had in the Westshire sun. Half obscured by shadow, there was just enough light to see the way his lip curled in an evil grin, one long canine tooth deadly sharp, and his brows dark and thick. "I don't want to have to hurt either of you. Well, I'd _like_ to, but it's not a good idea right now. Not with what we got going down tomorrow."

"Creed -"

"Speaking of which, little runt, you can tell your precious _Captain_ to suck my cock. When Shaw's back in charge, Lehnsherr's going to -"

"Enough!" Alex's runes were glowing hot, now, like they had seconds before he'd set the Westshire ground to ruin. Hank swallowed.

"Alex..." he said cautiously.

Alex's jaw was clenched tight, his hands fisted at his sides as he and Creed stared one another down. He didn't appear to have heard him.

"Alex," Hank said again, and this time reached out to touch the back of Alex's arm.

Alex flinched violently, startled, and whirled on Hank so fast and angry that he feared he'd be struck, but came to his senses when seeing the confused expression on Hank's face. Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He shook his head and muttered, "Whatever. Creed - you do what you want. But I _will_ be telling Erik about this."

Creed said, seeming amused, "You do what you have to do."

With one nasty look back at Creed, Alex motioned for Hank to retreat back towards the stairs.

"You takin' in strays now Summers?" asked Creed after they'd turned, vicious eyes lighting on Hank. "I thought you liked 'em sweet and dark, but I guess I can see why you'd like this one. Skinny, but firm."

"Where's your bother, Victor?" Alex said, stopping in his tracks and ignoring Creed's question entirely. "Kill him like you did the rest of your family?"

Creed's smile was full of sharp teeth. He exhaled a puff of cigar smoke. "Oh, he's around. Don't you worry about Jimmy. We've got a lot of catching up to do, him and me."

"Right, I forgot. You'll just torture him and leave the mess for everyone else to clean up." Alex scoffed, disgusted. "You're completely insane."

"No one's gonna argue with you on that. Especially me."

Creed bent and retrieved a roll of parchment from the shadows. He extended it toward Alex, who, after a moment, reluctantly accepted. "Truth is, though," said Creed, staring down at Alex and smiling, "I'm the only one on this ship who's having any fun."

Alex snorted. "Your definition of 'fun' needs work."

He ushered Hank back up the stairs, their feet sliding on the wet floor, and Hank tried to ignore the lingering sounds of Creed's laughter as they pricked his ears with each step back up towards the light.

 

****

 

When they passed his cabin door, Hank hesitated.

"Umm..."

Alex, who was walking ahead of him now, having overtaken him when they emerged from below in the hold, stopped and turned to face him. His eyes were distant, his hair even more of a mess than before from how hard he'd been tugging at it, and in his hand Hank saw the roll of parchment clenched tight.

The look he gave Hank was tired but said clearly, _what_? Hank was surprised he wasn't shouting at him. When Hank didn't say anything, Alex raised an eyebrow.

"Are you coming?"

Alex turned and began walking down the corridor with purpose, heading for the stairs that would take him up to the crew deck. Hank followed behind, ducking his head as they passed by several open doors, various members of the crew hanging around inside. They climbed up the stairs and, to Hank's surprise, continued up even further, to where the stairs narrowed from the width where two men could stand comfortably abreast to so narrow that Hank had to turn to his side to walk comfortably up. These stairs were obviously not meant to be used as part of normal regulation.

He did have an idea, however, of where they were going.

Alex led him through a small opening – there was no entrance, just a wooden frame with nails sticking dangerously out - and up to a heavy metal door with the strangest ornaments Hank had ever seen.

"Are these flowers?" There were several kinds that Hank recognized as ones his mother used to grow in their garden, lilies and tulips with their long stems wrapped around the vines of other plants, broad leaves flat and covered with dangerous spikes. Desert plants, Hank recalled, from his books on the Kingdom's most remote city of Grisaille.

"Don't touch them." Alex took a deep breath and lifted his hand.

"I thought you said -"

"I told _you_ not to touch them," Alex said. "They know me, not you." Very gently, Alex touched the tip of his finger to one of the flowers. Hank watched, enthralled, as the flower twisted, looking like it was about to leap right off the door and swallow his finger whole. True to his word, Alex didn't seem at all fazed by this, nor did he even wince when the flower came to life and bit him, somehow, and a drop of bright red blood ran down the petal to collect in the center.

"Blood magic," Hank whispered.

Alex looked sideways at him. "A gift."

_Who's gift_ , Hank wondered, when the door made a hissing noise and swung open.

Captain Lehnsherr sat at his table, legs propped up with his boots crossed at the ankles, a heavy leather-bound book in his lap. He didn't look up when they entered, just turned the page and continued reading.

"Alex."

"Captain," said Alex. Hank noticed he didn't bow, just tossed the parchment on the table by Lehnsherr's feet. "We have a problem."

"Oh?"

"Yes, _oh_." Alex grabbed a chair and sat down. Hank remained standing, unsure if he should follow suit.

Lehnsherr glanced at the roll of parchment, then at Alex. He closed his book and set his feet down with a sigh, grabbing up the missive and unrolling it. "You can sit," he told Hank absently. Hank obeyed, grabbing the chair by Alex and letting himself down slowly. His leg was throbbing from the climbing of all the stairs and he shifted uncomfortably.

After a long moment of reading, Lehnsherr took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, a look of abrupt anger coming over him and disappearing just as fast as Hank noticed it.

"Well?" said Alex. "What is it?"

"Orders."

" _Orders_?" Alex repeated, then snorted and rolled his eyes. "He's not even in charge yet and he's already giving orders."

"When has that ever stopped him?" said Lehnsherr wryly. He sighed and threw the parchment in the fireplace, sitting heavily in his chair. He ran a hand over his face. "Unfortunately, I expected something like this to happen. We don't have a lot of time, but if he's got people like Creed doing his dirty work, well...I wanted to do this quietly."

"Creed doesn't do anything quietly."

Lehnsherr nodded. He sighed.

"I need you to do something for me."

Alex nodded, "Sure."

"Both of you."

Hank blinked. So far, he'd been sitting idle trying to make sense of what they were talking about without actually having to _ask,_ aware that he was being brought into a conversation that he had no privilege to be included in. His expression of disbelief and anxiety must have shown on his face, because Lehnsherr said, very simply and somewhat impatiently,

"You're part of my crew, McCoy. That means you will follow my orders."

Unspoken, he was saying: I trust you to follow them.

Trust. This from a man who was feared by merchants and pirates alike throughout the Kingdom. To earn the trust of a thief...Hank wasn't sure what he had done, what Lehnsherr saw in him, that made him believe in Hank so.

Hank nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Go to our sources and get me an accounting: hidden stashes, old debts that need collecting and the like. I need to know who owes who what and if there's anything we can exploit should we need as leverage. Alex, talk to Pryde and find out who she's got on her list of 'essential' personnel, in case there's a struggle. Hank, go see Angel in the lower deck - Frost's girl. She'll know about the stashes and any other gossip that may be of importance.

“If he's done what I think he has, this is going to make tomorrow's...ceremony...all the more difficult. We need to have contingencies in place in case things go badly. The crew needs to be taken care of.”

Distractedly, Alex tapped his finger on the table. It was a nervous sound.

"All of the crew?" he asked.

Hank’s brow furrowed, confused.

Lensherr paused. "Yes."

“And the orders?”

“Follow them,” Lehnsherr said. “For now.”

 

****

 

"Who's Shaw?" asked Hank when they got back to the crew deck. Alex paused, hand on the door.

"You'll find out soon enough," he said. He seemed as if he was about to go inside, but hesitated. "I know, uh, that you've been trying to find the materials to fix those. Your shoes." Alex was looking at Hank's feet, which suddenly felt about a trillion times bigger and uglier than before, with how Alex was staring at them.

Hank swallowed, willing himself not to turn as red as he knew he was surely getting. "Yeah..."

Alex wrenched his eyes away and looked Hank in the face. His eyes were blue, Hank noticed, and wasn't sure why this surprised him.

"Don't."

 

 

_Part Two: Power in Truth_

 

"You've had sex before."

"I've...done things before."

"But not sex." Angel sighed, nodding. "Okay, I can work with this."

She went to her cot, the one shoved against the wall farthest from the door. It hadn't escaped Anna Marie's notice that the pillows were faced so she would be the first to see anyone who intended to enter. Angel withdrew several lengths of colorful embroidered fabric from a box hidden underneath.

"These are _harrseka,_ " she explained. "Ceremonial drapes, given to me by my _busa,_ my grandmother when I was chosen as a tribute. They are very important for us to wear on a ship like this. So much violence, so much death..."

These were the same as Armando's cloth, Anna Marie understood - a muted grey that seemed to change color depending on the light - and Angel's own tunic, a vibrant yellow with an intricate web design.

Angel picked up one _harrseka_ after another, stretching them out and holding them up to Anna Marie's face. She narrowed her eyes, mouth twisting in consideration.

"I think...this one." Angel handed her a length of dark green fabric. It slipped through her fingers like water and she watched, mesmerized, at the way it shone against her pale skin.

She felt as if she should say thank you but was unsure if the gesture would be welcome. Often these past few weeks when she felt a reaction was appropriate - a thanks, an apology - she had the feeling that her new roommates...friends?...were exasperated with her. They were never cruel - if anything their annoyance was fond - but it had become very clear to Anna Marie that she was an outsider here. The closest thing to people like them she had encountered in Westshire was Irene, and every meeting made her so uncomfortable that she avoided the old woman at all costs. There were only so many times she could stand to be looked at like she was an explosion about to go off.

Genoshans were a deeply mystical people, she had come to realize. No matter where in the Arran Kingdom they were from, each had customs that, while different, were at their core dedicated to maintaining their collective culture. They believed in the old spirits and prayed at least twice a day. They spoke of their respective homes, their priests and chiefs, all who were supplicants to the Temple at what the Kingdom called Hammer Bay, or as they called it, _Saychelle_.

That first night after Azazel appeared in a puff of smoke to inform them that Emma had pressing business and would be unable to attend to Anna Marie just yet, Armando lit an incense that smelled of sandalwood and lavender.

"Azazel means well," he said with an inherent calmness that she was beginning to associate with him, "But the _ajasha_ cling to him. It's not his fault."

_Ajasha_. Evil spirits.

Her grip tightened on the green _harrseka_.

Angel nodded, satisfied with her choice. "It suits you," she said. "Normally, there would be a ceremony where you'd choose one at random while blindfolded. But, since we don't have that many and, well," she shrugged.

"No," said Anna Marie. "I...probably would have picked this one anyway. Green is my favorite color."

"Great! That's a good sign." Angel eyed her appraisingly. "And anyway it will look nice on you once you decide how you want to wear it. Until then, just hang on to it."

Anna Marie nodded. She'd been given clothes that, while not nearly as revealing as her cabinmates', was still much more freeing than she was accustomed to. And by Westshire standards, she had dressed _loosely,_ her father often chastising her for her lack of decorum, for her too-tight tops with exposed arms and skirts that fell below her knee instead of her ankles. She refused to change because she liked them; liked the way they swished about her calves as she ran. They made her feel free.

She noticed the way Angel's eyes had taken on a far-away look. She wanted to ask...

"Um, will you tell me about it?"

"Hmm, what?"

"About Marassna," she tried not to completely butcher the pronunciation. "About your grandmother."

Angel had fallen silent, her expression unreadable. There was no way for Anna Marie to tell if she'd offended with her question. She stood still, fidgeting with the cloth and feeling gooseflesh erupt on her exposed thighs from her shortened tunic, watching with fascination as Angel - normally unflappable - seemed completely thrown.

Angel looked at her, finally, her expression pinched, like she was warring with herself. Her brow furrowed and she opened her mouth -

They were interrupted by a pounding on the door.

Angel shook her head minutely, taking a deep breath. She smiled, but Anna Marie noticed that it didn't reached her eyes. "Put that somewhere safe," she whispered, as she called to the door, "Come in!"

Anna Marie shoved the _harrseka_ underneath her pillow just as the door opened to admit -

_"Hank?"_

 

****

 

She had run to him, registering it only when she felt the way he stiffened under her arms. Back home, people didn't _touch_ Hank. It just wasn't done, and to tell the truth, Anna Marie had never really wanted to. He was awkward, always hanging back out of sight or in the shadows unless he was making an annoyance of himself by speaking up in school, knowing every little thing the schoolmarm was asking. Anna Marie didn't particularly think that she cared too much about the opinions of the other girls in Westshire, but she knew that she never would have risked a hug like this were she still there. When she did now, though, she found that he was thin and surprisingly fit; and so, so much taller than what she'd expected.

She couldn't believe it. Hank was here, on the _Cerebro_. He looked different than the last time she'd seen him. It was on That Day, she realized, when everything went to hell: he'd been in the Red Hen with Charles, sitting at the bar with his head bent over a book. He was always reading something, always in the corner somewhere off by himself or with Charles. Those two were one in the same for as long as she could remember.

Which meant, if Hank was here...

"Charles?" she asked, suddenly terrified of what this answer might be.

"He's here," Hank said. "Somewhere."

Her chest relaxed, a bitter relief but one all the same.

Delicately she untangled her arms from around his chest. Hank’s cheeks were pink, she noted, and he was purposefully looking over the top of her head.

She stepped back and, feeling a little foolish at her outburst herself, crossed her arms over her torso.

“Charles?” Angel said. Unsurprisingly, she was not embarrassed by the sudden intrusion or their awkwardness, and she acted as if she didn’t even notice how Hank turned his head when she bent down to retrieve a fallen garment off the floor, the neck of her tunic gaping wide. “The mind-toucher?”

Anna Marie turned to her. “You know him?”

“I haven’t met him, but I heard that Essex recruited one in the Trials. Young, pretty, with really astounding blue eyes?” Anna Marie nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Poor kid.”

“What do you mean?” Hank asked.

“Essex is...” Angel frowned, searching for the right way to phrase what she wanted to say. “Well, insane would be the best way to describe him, but that doesn’t do him justice." Realizing that did not sound at all comforting, she elaborated. "Basically he’s the Magistrate’s spiritual advisor, which over the years has become less about giving him advice on the afterlife and more about making him paranoid that someone is going to assassinate him. It might not be unfounded, but it’s made the Magistrate more likely to do things that are guaranteed to solidify his cruel reputation." She paused, "Like the Trials, and letting Lehnsherr's crew have their sport for recruitment."

"Hasn't he always been like that?" As a child, it seemed all one heard of the Magistrate in Westshire were awful tales, especially as his campaign for unification of the Kingdom began in earnest. Sanctioned raids on the high seas, invading Genoshan holy sites and setting fire to sacred lands, pillaging villages and kidnapping.

Recent events had proven just how true those tales were.

Angel shook her head. "It was before I was born, before _we_ were born, but I have heard people talk of when he used to be more diplomatic. More lenient."

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Angel shrugged. "Doesn't really matter now though, does it?"

"No," Hanks said, his voice low. "It doesn't."

They lapsed into a small silence, then, the three of them standing in the center of the room. Eventually, Anna Marie's eyes were drawn to Hank as he stood illuminated in the tiny glare of light from the window.

He looked...older, somehow. Although it had been only weeks, there was a hardness about him that she had not expected; the veins in his arms were prominent, corded like ropes that ran from his wrists to his biceps - and they were actually exposed, where before he always wore thick layers, carefully pressed. His stance was taller, his head held high, and his legs were covered in pants that hung like rags, cuts and bruises peaking through the holes.

She wondered if Charles bore similar scars.

A part of her wondered if she would as well.

She shook her head, remembering herself. "So what are you doing here Hank?"

She said the words and realized, abruptly, where she was and what he _might_ be here for.

Luckily, Hank seemed to realize this too and shook his head, his cheeks flaming again, and said, "I, uh, actually..." He cleared his throat. "The Captain sent me."

Angel sat up straighter, suddenly serious.

"Oh?"

"He wants to know about the debts? Gossip and stories that are being exchanged in the below decks. Something about preparing for a ceremony?"

"Is this about tomorrow?"

Hank nodded.

"What's tomorrow?" Anna Marie asked.

Angel ignored her, relaxing minutely. She reached into the trunk by the foot of her cot and withdrew some parchment and a nub of charcoal. Anna Marie recognized it as the one she normally used to line her eyes. Angel began writing in thick, blocky letters; the kind that people who hadn't yet mastered a written language used.

"Give him this," she said, folding it and handing it to Hank. "There are a few things he might want to be on the lookout for, but nothing that's going to pose too much of a threat. Emma will let him know if she discovers anything, and Armando is, as we speak, putting to bed a final loose end."

Armando was with a client, a sailor he'd only peripherally referred to as Ice Man. The word on the ship was that his gift was the ability to freeze objects at will, a feat which was often used to scare enemies who might try to attack the _Cerebro_ in open waters, as well as trap ships for the purposes of boarding during raids. For all of these exploits, Ice Man wasn't rumored to be cruel, and appeared to be one of the few gifted on the ship who the human crew actually _liked_.

Anna Marie learned all of this at the close of daily festivities, early mornings when Armando or Angel would come back from their visits and whisper to each other an accounting of their day. The things they learned from their clients were often miniscule, small and seemingly unimportant. Perhaps, if one were to take them only one phrase at a time, they would appear so: the measure of one man's life told in second-hand anecdotes held little importance. But the lives of many men, told over time and woven together like cloth...

"Thank you." Hank tucked the parchment in his breeches. He hesitated, unsure of what to do next.

"Tell Alex that Armando sends his regards," Angel said. "He regrets that there seems to have been several scheduling conflicts in these past few weeks, but he looks forward to another visit sometime soon."

Hank nodded slowly. "Okay."

With that, he turned around and left, the door swinging behind him and latching silently.

Anna Marie stared at Angel for a long while, hands clenching together nervously. She had a very bad feeling. It mingled with the constant lump she'd carried in the pit of her stomach ever since she woke up in this room. It swirled together like the _ajasha_ she could envision twisting inside her body like snakes. Something was going on. Something dangerous. Something wrong.

"Angel?"

"Yeah."

"Whatever happens tomorrow..." she swallowed. "Will I be okay?"

Angel was silent for a long moment. Absently, Anna Marie noted that in her hands she was fiddling with her own _harrseka_ , an approximation of her own nervous behavior. Folded as they were along her back, Angel's wings fluttered restlessly, like a baby bird attempting to puff itself up for protection.

"I hope so," she said after a while. She stared at Anna Marie with deep, dark eyes and held out her hand. Anna Marie took it, and held it tight.

"I hope so."

 

****

 

Later that night Anna Maire was sat on her bed idly twirling the green sash between her fingers, half of it tucked underneath her pillow and the single thin sheet bunched around her ankles. At one time it would have been insufficient coverage for a night in the Westshire clime, but the conditions on the ship had been suffocating. Between the darkness that seemed near permanent in the cabin's lower decks where the sun never reached and the press of a hundred feet tromping above and below, the air was still and stale; hot and much more humid that she was accustomed to. There must be a sea breeze, surely, though it did not reach where she was kept.

She had yet to explore the ship. She couldn't bring herself to step outside the room - her room now too, it seemed - where her constant companions were either Angel or Armando. Though still mostly strangers to her, their presence was now comforting in its consistency. Thankfully, neither conducted their...business in these bedchambers. She had the sense that such acts conducted in their private space, where they'd cleansed the air of _ajasha_ , was something they would frown upon even if the acts themselves brought no shame.

Absently, she watched as Angel and Armando engaged in their customary pre-sunset ritual: Angel would hold out a cup of wine she'd procured from the ship's canteen, whether by stealth or by asking Anna Marie did not know, and Armando would present a small bit of bread he'd saved from the dinner rations the day before. Together, they would dip their fingers in the wine, spreading its bitter juice across their lips, their noses, and foreheads, and tear a small bit of bread to hold in their palms.

Armando passed the cup to Anna Marie. She accepted it, habit by now, and dipped her finger inside, careful not to get any on the _harrseka_ as she brought it to her lips.

She'd wondered, once, why this act of eating and drinking was so ritualized. Surely it could be no different than the men and women above, sitting down to countless meals of the same bread and wine. Was that too not a ritual of blessing?

Rather, she'd learned, it was the intent behind the action that mattered most.

Angel tore of a piece of bread and was in the process of passing it to Anna Marie when she abruptly froze. The bite fell to the floor as they all flinched, Anna Marie trembling at the terrible feeling of ice pressing against her skull from the inside out.

Mistress Frost, she realized, a chill of an altogether different sort making its way up her spine. It had been almost a month and she had yet to see her mysterious benefactor. The thought of doing so now, on the eve of the mysterious ceremony, filled her with an overwhelming sense of dread.

When the pain receded Armando stood up shakily, grimacing though less affected than either she or Angel. His gift, he'd explained - it made him resistant to many things. But Emma's ice, as with the distinct touch of any mind-toucher, was harder for him to resist.

"It's time," he said, extending his hand.

Anna Marie swallowed and took his proffered grip. Gently, as if he feared she may bolt, he led her out of their small cabin.

It reminded her, eerily, of the forest in Westshire. Everything was dark and quiet, the ground rocking slowly and subtly beneath them, all at once too much that she had to reach out a hand to steady herself and not fall over. They passed many doors along the corridor that were bolted tight, the normally boisterous laughter and festivities that took place each night aboard the _Cerebro_ having been suspended for some unspoken reason. It gave the air an edge of anticipation, and with each shut door she passed, Anna Marie felt her nerves tingle like static. She fought to keep her breathing even. It would not do her any favors to succumb to nervousness. Especially since she was going to see a mind-toucher, who would know all her fears regardless. The least she could do for herself was to pretend to be calm.

They came to a stop outside the cabin at the very end of the hall, set along the stern-facing wall of the ship, a pair of dark wood double doors with opulent, swirling designs flowing from top to bottom and glittering handles.

"Are those real diamonds?" she wondered, only realizing she's spoken aloud when the sound of her voice startled her.

Armando nodded. He knocked on the door.

"Enter," called a female voice.

The doors swung open to reveal a room that was striking for how different it was to anything she had ever seen before in her life. There were white colored sofas tucked along every wall; silk covered cushions with goose-stuffed pillows, covered in delicately hand embroidered duvets with golden trim and red accents. Along the walls were several paintings of landscape scenery, places with mountains and glacial peaks that were unfamiliar but looked too fantastical to be real; and in the corner was a vanity with a towering mirror that nearly touched the ceiling. It looked like it belonged to royalty, and the other name she'd heard whispered for Mistress Frost began to make more sense now: the White Queen.

Emma herself was perched at the vanity, swirling a mixture of various bottles together in a small bowl. She was dressed in much less-intimidating clothing than when they'd first met: instead of the battle-worn skin-tight ensemble she'd worn in Westshire, she was now dressed in a loose-fitting gown, so sheer white it was nearly transparent. Her blonde hair was piled neatly atop her head in a messy bun, the ends beginning to frazzle with the moisture and humidity. She looked around when they entered and, though she did not smile, her eyes were warmer than Anna Marie anticipated.

"Thank you Darwin," she cooed. "I will take it from here."

Armando bowed slightly and left without a word or a backward glance. Before she could so much as look to him - plead with him, beg with her eyes to make him stay - he was gone. Anna Marie was alone.

Mistress Frost tilted her head very slightly and regarded her. The gaze felt like a heavy weight, and Anna Marie struggled to meet Emma's eyes, not to duck her head and hide like her entire body was screaming to do.

Eventually, Emma spoke.

"You haven't been eating."

Anna Marie shook her head, then aborted the movement as she realized it wasn't a question. Of course Emma would know she hadn't been eating. She would know that the food on board the ship was possibly the most foul-smelling stuff she had ever come across, including the fat mixture she had been given when she arrived, and that the mere thought of imbibing it made her want to throw up half the time. Emma would know how she couldn't look at most food - even the bread and wine that her roommates lovingly gifted her - without thinking of the Red Hen, her job in the kitchens. Her late mother, her brothers. Her _father_.

"Those kinds of thoughts will be your undoing," Emma said suddenly, so viciously that Anna Marie was taken aback. "You waste time imagining scenarios that will never be, remembering things that never were. You think that just because you experienced something that it belongs to you? My dear, you are so very wrong."

Anna Marie was stunned. She couldn't even begin to formulate a reply.

She was saved from having to by the immediate shift in Emma's demeanor. All at once her face relaxed, a calmness settling over her ice-blue eyes, and it was like it had never even happened.

"Will you come sit with me?" Emma asked. She turned herself sideways in her chair so that her legs hung facing the door, crossed neatly at the ankles. She kept the little bowl on her lap, the mixture inside sloshing just a little bit as she moved. It was a white, pasty substance that looked like paint.

Anna Marie hesitated, then walked forward slowly. It felt like an eternity, the ten feet from the door to the chair, and every step was an effort. _Keep breathing_ , she told herself. It was a comfort to realize suddenly, if not a little morbidly, that if Emma had wanted her dead she would already be so.

Emma overheard this private thought - and that was another thing she realized, that none of her thoughts would be private any longer - and smiled approvingly. She gestured to the floor in front of the chair. "Sit," she said.

Anna Marie folded herself gently onto the bare-swept floor, first on her knees and then, awkwardly at Emma's prodding, turned around so that her back was pressed along Emma's calves, digging into her spine. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the weight of a hand pressed against her scalp.

"As I'm sure you've heard," Emma began, "There is a special celebration to be held tomorrow evening. An old friend of mine is making a long overdue appearance, and I have the honored task of providing entertainment for the event: music, dancing and the like. Armando and Angel are going to be in attendance, and I would very much like for you to be as well." Two thin, pointed fingers drew along Anna Marie's temples, back towards her hair, and tucked them behind her ears. "You've become something of a mystery aboard this ship. Everyone is very excited to meet you."

Closing her eyes and shivering despite herself, Anna Marie swallowed roughly. This was it. This was how it was going to happen. Everything she had been fearing was about to come true.

Emma shushed her. "It's really not as bad as all that, I assure you." She projected a sense of calm surety that comforted Anna Marie despite herself. "Do the others act as if it is some great tragedy? Do they lie in their beds at night and cry?"

No they did not. And she knew why they didn't because as they had told her weeks ago, it could be much worse. For them, it _had_ been. At least here aboard the _Cerebro,_ surrounded by hardened men who sought pleasure but had only a few nonviolent ways of attaining it, Angel and Armando were, if not respected, valued. Their opinions held weight. They were confidants and advisors, and had amassed loyal clients in a way that was almost religious in its intensity. If anyone was simultaneously the least overtly respected but the most regarded, it was them.

But in order to do all that, they had to...

"I know," Emma said. "I know that the first time can be difficult. This world, unfortunately, does not prepare most girls for the reality of the first time they lay with someone. You imagined it would be at home with a boy of your choosing, fumbling in the dark with uncertain fingers and hesitant touches. Instead it will be on this ship, surrounded by strangers who leer at you and call you names, with an unfamiliar man - someone who is bigger and stronger and faster than you are - and it will hurt."

Tears were springing up now, washing down Anna Marie's cheeks. They burned. Her throat felt tight, like she wanted to heave and sob at the same time but nothing would come out.

"Why are you telling me this?" she choked. Why couldn't Emma just _lie._

"It wouldn't do you any favors. If you can bring yourself to understand, to truly internalize and accept the reality of the situation - of any situation you may find yourself in - you can meet it head on, fearlessly." Her tone was icy but simultaneous full of what could only be described as determination; a desire to impart this lesson, heavy with the weight of experience learned the hard way.

"There is power in the truth, Marie. Your ability to wield it is the only weapon that is available to you here."

They were silent for a long moment. The tears still made their way down Anna Marie's cheeks, but they were fewer, now. Not by some lessening of her grief - she suspected she may never, ever get over that - but by that numbing calmness that once again settled itself around her. She didn't think that, this time, it had anything to do with Emma's ability.

She was struck by a thought.

"How do I..."

She didn't even know how to phrase it. She imagined some faceless man, his features and proportions obscured by the shadows; a black shape that could transform into anyone, reaching out for her with harsh, jerky movements. This was not to be anything like her flirtations and mild experimentation with Charles. She had no idea what to envision, what to expect. "What do I do?"

"Tell them a story," Emma said, gathering Anna Marie's hair in her delicate hands. She parted the strands gently, her fingers cold where they touched against the skin. Anna Marie fought not to shiver, for as kind as those hands appeared to be, she knew they were merely resting dormant in their capacity to be cruel.

"Men like to pretend that they don't appreciate a good story unless it has death and violence, but they really like a good romance just as much as anyone else."

Emma bent down and whispered in Anna Marie's ear, low and intimate. "They'll act as if they aren't interested in what you're saying. They'll scoff and sneer and call you a whore, and when your back is turned they'll undress you with their eyes. They'll trace the way your tunic hangs along your thigh, how it bunches at your waist. They'll imagine a million things they want to do to you, that they want you to do to them. They might not listen to the words you're saying, but you can be sure they will be interested in how you say it. A brush on the arm," - here, she ran a finger along Anna Marie's shoulder, back and forth across the skin between her shoulder blades - "A gaze, deep into their eyes. Imagine they are the most interesting person you have ever met. Their lives are amazing, adventurous, and you want to know all about it."

Emma dipped the fingers of her right hand into the small bowl perched in her lap and grasped a portion of Anna Marie's hair with her left, a lock about an inch thick by her temple. She began massaging the mixture - a floral-smelling stuff with the consistency of paste - into the strands.

Anna Marie shivered as the wetness touched her skin. She was thinking about Emma's words...about the story she would tell to this unknown person.

She had no experience weaving fictions, let alone under such circumstances where she could barely think for _herself_ let alone for someone else. What if they didn't like what she told them? Would they be cruel? Would they cast her out?

"They will like any story you tell them, sweetie. It's all about the delivery."

It made sense to her, then, like being shocked. Now she understood Angel's unwillingness to talk of her homeland. If your past was only good for pillow talk, your memories only trickery with which to pry knowledge from men's heads, then what was left to you?

Emma tutted, "Oh, sweet thing. _You_ are what is left to you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence, threatening, and discussions of sexual behavior with dubious consent


End file.
